1. Paradiso 8.34-37 associate it with Charles Martel's visit to Florence in March of that year; see Dante 1965 2:343-346.

2. See the careful summaries of the debates in Fenzi 1966 230 and 286-294.

3. "Tra i problemi più dibattuti della bibliografia dantesca è quello circa l'identificazione della così detta donna Pietra. In fondo, il problema non ha ragione di porsi, perché la donna Pietra è semplicemente il legame che unisce le liriche più tecnicistiche di Dante, nelle quali l'energia lessicale e la rarità delle rime si trasformano, a norma di 'contenuto', nel tema della donna aspra, dell'amore difficile" (Contini, in Dante 1946 149; cf. Fenzi 1966 286-287).

4. The most careful elaboration of this view is Blasucci 1957 (also in Blasucci 1969).

5. "La leggittima ammirazione corrente per questa serie suggestiva deve pur lasciar chiaro come, innanzi ai 'frammenti' di poesia petrosa che s'articolano nella Commedia (per esempio il cerchio dei traditori), l'ispirazione delle petrose appaia, essa, radicalmente 'frammentaria"' (Contini, in Dante 1946 xxi). See Fenzi 1966 293-294 n .21.

6. The first critic who seems to us to have recognized the psychological and ethical seriousness of any of the petrose is Peter Dronke, in his three pages on "Così nel mio parlar voglio esser aspro" (1968 164-166).

7. We discuss the grounds for this dating in Chapter 2, pp. 80-81.

8. On all aspects of Dante's biography, see Petrocchi 1978; for Dante's birthdate, see pp. 1-5. In both versions of his life of Dante, the Trattatello in laude di Dante, Boccaccio gives only the years of Dante's birth and death; in the Esposizioni sopra il Dante, however, explaining that "Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita" refers to Dante's age as thirty-five in 1300, he relates:

E che egli fosse così assai ben si verifica per quello che già mi ragionasse un valente uomo, chiamato ser Piero di messer Giardino da Ravenna, il quale fu uno de' più intimi amici e servidori che Dante avesse in Ravenna, affermandomi avere avuto da Dante, giaccendo egli nella infermità della quale e' mori, lui avere di tanto trapassato il cinquantesimosesto anno, quanto dal preterito maggio avea infino a quel dì. E assai ne consta Dante essere morto negli anni di Cristo ICCCXXI, dì XIIII di settembre; per che, sottraendo ventuno di cinquantasei, restano trentacinque.
(Boccaccio 1965 20; see Padoan's note 6, p. 775) break

      If this testimony is accepted, corroborated as it is by Dante's own indication (in Paradiso 22.110-120) that he was born under Gemini (and it is perhaps inherently less likely to have been distorted by Boccaccio's love of "literary schemas" than other matters), we can at least locate the date of Dante's birth in the period between the entrance of the sun into Gemini, which in 1265 took place on May 13, and the end of the month (Petrocchi does not mention Boccaccio's testimony on this point, apparently regarding it as untrustworthy). See Chapter 2, notes 8, 32.

9. The two had been betrothed as children in 1277, according to Florentine custom; we do not know when they were actually married.

10. Both of Dante's sons, Pietro and Iacopo, would have to have been of legal age (at least fifteen) when they were included in the commune's sentence of death against Dante in 1315. Thus both of them, and possibly a third son who may have died in childhood, must have been born by 1300.

11. See Petrocchi 1978 18-30; Dante's entrance into politics was made possible by the new Ordinamenti di Giustizia of 1295, which lifted the ban on lesser nobles' running for office.

12. It is not entirely certain whether Dante was sent on the mission of November 1300 or that of October 1301 (the traditional view); see Petrocchi 1978 29-30.

13. The question of the sequence and dating of Dante's other canzoni is so vexed, and the petrose represent on the whole so radical a departure from them, that for the most part we simply leave them to one side. On the several canzoni that seem to have special connections with the petrose, see Chapter 4, note 48.

14. See below, "The Problematic of the Petrose ."

15. See especially Blasucci 1957.

16. Price 1970 123; on the Toledan and Alfonsine tables, see also Millas Vallicrosa 1943-50. Such patterns as Charles S. Singleton (1965a) established for the lengths of cantos around the center of the Commedia may depend on the use of the new Arabic numerals; the technique of casting out of nines, however, is ancient (see Martianus Capella 2.103-105 on the numerology of the names of Mercury and Philologia). For optics in the thirteenth century, see Crombie 1953.

17. For an excellent survey of Dante's scientific and philosophical ideas, see Boyde 1981. The best discussion of Dante's astronomical conceptions is Buti and Bertagni 1966; see also d'Alverny 1970; Moore 1895; and Orr 1957. For general discussions of the science of Dante's day, see Crombie 1959; and the very useful volume by Edward Grant (1979). For a useful survey of astrology in Dante, see Kay 1988 147-162.

18. For the concept in general, see Allers 1944; Rico 1970, esp. 11-107; Barkan 1975; and Kurdzialek 1971. For the twelfth century, see Gregory 1956; d'Alverny 1953; and Chenu 1976. For the concept of a literary work as microcosmic in the Neoplatonic tradition, see Coulter 1976.

19. See Olerud, and F. M. Cornford's useful commentary (1937).

20. Macrobius 1970a; there is an English translation by W. H. Stahl (1952). For the Timaeus in the Middle Ages, see Klibanksy 1939; Gregory 1958, esp. continue

      chap. 4, "Il Timeo e i problemi del platonismo medievale"; and Chenu 1976 108-141.

21. Plato 1962. Calcidius ends at Timaeus 53 b.

22. Timaeus 36b (Plato 1961 1166). Calcidius translates the passage:

Tunc hanc ipsam seriem in longum secuit et ex una serie duas fecit easque mediam mediae in speciem chi Graecae litterae coartavit curvavitque in orbes, quoad coirent inter se capita, orbemque orbi sic inseruit, ut alter eorum adverso, alter obliquo circuitu rotarentur, et exterioris quidem circuli motum eundem, quod erat eiusdem naturae consanguineus, cognominavit, interioris autem diversum; atque exteriorem quidem circulum, quem eundem cognominatum esse diximus, a regione dextra per sinistrum latus eidem et simili illi circumactioni virtute pontificioque rotatus dato. Unam quippe, ut erat, eam et indivisam reliquit, interiorem vero scidit sexies septemque impares orbes fabricatus est iuxta dupli et tripli spatia orbesque ipsos contraria ferri iussit agitatione.

23. For an analysis of the Timaeus itself as mirroring the structure of the human body—and thus of the cosmos—see Brague 1985.

24. For detailed discussions of microcosmic form in other important texts known to have influenced Dante—Virgil's Fourth Eclogue and the third book of Seneca's Naturales quaestiones —see, respectively, Büchner 1955 1196-1211; and Durling 1975 97-100.

25. See Gibson 1981; and Chadwick 1981.

26. See the excellent survey of the entire question in Tateo 1970.

27. Not much effective analysis has yet been carried out of the formal structure of the Consolatio. Chamberlain 1970 is an extremely careful and useful survey of references to music in the Consolatio. He shows (pp. 86-89) that 1 m.5 ("O stelliferi conditor orbis") and 3 m.12 ("Si vis celeri") refer to the main classifications of the musica mundana as set forth in De musica 1; he shows that the entire work is governed by the idea that "the world music should be used by man to order his own moral and intellectual activity" (p. 90), indeed, that the idea of music is in a sense the most fundamental one in the work; yet his discussion asks only what explicit or implicit statements about music are to be found within the Consolatio, and never raises the question of the relation of the structure of the poems (or of the work as a whole) to these principles. Gruber 1978 has important observations on the symmetrical arrangement of the various meters around "O qui perpetua" (pp. 19-24) but focuses almost entirely on questions of doctrine and sources (on "O qui perpetua," see pp. 277-290); Lerer 1985 (on "O qui perpetua," see pp. 138-145) and Crabbe 1981 have virtually no formal analysis; Scarry 1980 is based on extremely vague criteria. There really has been little advance beyond Fritz Klingner's suggestive discussion (1921).

28. As has generally been recognized; and cf. Gruber's observation on the place of "O qui perpetua" among the various meters (see last note).

29. This translation departs from the way the verse was understood in the Middle Ages: as most of the commentaries agree, "triplicis . . . naturae" was understood as a modifier to animam rather to mediam; see Gregory 1958 4-5 continue

and nn.; and Courcelle 1967 277, 293, 295. Gruber so takes the phrase (1978 282), referring to Timaeus 35a-36b (quoted above, p. 9). Dante seems to have understood the verse as we do, as a reference to the position of the soul as the mean between the two extremes. See Chapter 1, notes 30 and 31.

30. Text from Boethius 1957 51-52.

31. Courcelle 1967 271-274. For the doctrinal background, see Klingner 1921; Theiler 1964 (also in Theiler 1966); Theiler 1970; and Scheible 1972. Scheible's balanced discussion of the question of Boethius's debt in this poem to Proclus's commentary on the Timaeus (see esp. pp. 109-112) in our opinion rightly emphasizes the difference between the two writers' philosophical positions (a difference in our view due largely to Boethius's monotheistic Christianity). Scheible also demonstrates Boethius's use of Plotinus in several passages of 3 m.9. For the medieval discussions of the orthodoxy of Boethius's views, see Courcelle 1967 275-332; and Gregory 1958 2-15.

32. See Tateo 1970 657; and Kranz 1967. For additional parallels, see Chapter 6, pp. 229, 231-235.

33. As established by Norden (1913).

34. "Boethius more prisco ab invocationibus exordium sumit, parte media virtutes factaque dei praedicat, denique preces profert" (Klingner 1921 40).

35. He concludes: "In hymnis vero heroicis versibus compositis, Boethius quantum scio primus eo usus est. Qui hymnum Platonicum ad antiquissimam formam compositum illo quasi vertice addito ad pulchritudinem perfectam adduxit" (ibid.).

36. The completion of the pagan hymn with the conclusion pointed out by Klingner is a formal correlative of Boethius's ambition to preserve the achievements of classical philosophy in the Christian context: implicitly the claim is made that pagan philosophy prepares for Christianity, and Christianity crowns and completes it.

37. As Klingner (1921) showed, the terminology reflects the late Neoplatonic identification of the Good with the One; he argued that Proclus was the main influence. See above, note 31; and below, notes 39 and 40.

38. Klingner's discussion of the conclusion continues: "Sic enim reditus animae non solum desideratur et poscitur, sed quodam modo in ipso hymno agitur. Et sicut in ceteris versibus qui praecedunt res a deo productae et rursus revocatae et ad eum festinantes explicantur et verbis quasi expanduntur, ita in extremis omnis ille tamquam decursus et recursus rerum in quinque nomina eius contrahitur, postremo omnia velut in unum punctum in illud idem concurrunt" (1921 61-62). One wishes he had developed this insight further; it has gone unnoticed by later commentators.

39. Sheldon-Williams (in Armstrong 1967 429-431) writes:

For pagan and Christian alike, the cosmos is modelled on the Forms, which are located in the Mind of God. Therefore a proper understanding of the creation leads to the knowledge of the Mind of the Creator, and therefore of the Creator himself. The discourse of Scripture and the variety of nature reveal the same truth because their unifying principle is the same. The Scriptures express the Word of God, which, like the Neo- soft

platonic Intellect ( Noûs ) is the pleroma of all the Forms ( noetà ). . . . As power [the forms] are creative ( ousiopoioí ), as light they lead the creature back to its Creator: for they are the rays ( phôta, aktînes, augaî ) of which God is the Sun, the apprehensible aspect of divinity, whether intelligible or visible, through which he communicates himself to the minds and sense of his creatures, and through that knowledge draws them back to him, for "knowledge is a kind of conversion."

Thus the Christians shared with the Platonists the conception of universal nature as rest-in-motion or motion-in-rest consisting of three aspects: the eternally abiding First Principle; a procession therefrom through the Forms into their effects; and a return of the effects through the Forms to their First Principle. The names given to these aspects, by Platonist and Christian alike, were monê, próodos, epistrophé; but also, because every intelligible and creative principle abides what it is, and in order to accomplish its will emits power, which achieves its effect when the intention which emitted it is fulfilled, they were given the names ousia, dunamis, energeia.

The latter triad, which does not feature prominently in Neoplatonism, tended, after the ps.-Dionysius, to be preferred by Christians, since it was more convenient than the other for the exposition of a doctrine of creation (God effecting his will) as opposed to one of emanation (an automatic process).

40. Mente in line 7 refers to the transcendent principle of Mind ( noús in Neoplatonic terminology), assimilated to the Christian idea of the Logos, the second person of the Trinity, in an ablative of means, as holding the Ideas of things ( gerens, line 8); this is a version of Augustine's theory of the ideae seminales, based on John I: "through him were all things made"; cf. Gregory 1962, chap. 2, "Mediazione e incarazione." Menti in line 22 refers to the created analog of noûs aspiring to knowledge of it. So also forma boni in line 6 corresponds to fontem boni in line 23 (the referents are identical). As the terms applied to Soul here echo those used of God in the first section, so also the parallelism of convertit in line 17 with conversas in line 21 (noted above) establishes a descending chain of analogies.

41. As this poem occurs in the central book of five; cf. Klingner's observation that there are five names for God in the last line (note 38 above). See below, note 46.

42. This is not arbitrary; Boethius was fluent in Greek as well as in Latin, and he was used to thinking of the Roman letters (which existed exclusively in capitals and uncials, minuscules not having yet been invented) as counterparts of the Greek: Roman A was for him physically identical with Greek capital alpha; the long O of many Latin endings corresponded to the Greek omega endings, as every schoolboy knew. For end-at-beginning and beginning-at-end, cf. the pattern in Virgil's Fourth Eclogue, of line 5, "Ultima . . . ," and line 70, "Incipe. . . ."

43. See Freccero 1983 15-16. Considering the intense attention to detail that the poem evinces, it would not be fanciful to see its thematic alpha and omega in the first and last vowels of the last word of line 2 ( aevo ), where the sense is continue

      again the circle. Tempus ab aevo: time is set in motion from eternity, its alpha which is also its telos (its omega ), toward which it turns and therefore circulates.

44. We mentioned above that there are alternative ways of dividing the poem. In addition to 1-6, 6-21, 22-28, and 1-9, 10-21, 22-28 (which gives sections of nine, twelve, and seven lines), the marginal line numbers may suggest another division, into groups of seven, according to which lines 1-7 would concern God, 8-14 and 15-21 the structure of the world, and 22-28 the return of the mind to God. In any division, of course, three lines go to the elements, five to the World-Soul, four to the lesser souls, and seven to the petition, which, as we have seen, breaks naturally into two groups of three and four lines. The sharply distinguished nature of the last line of the poem, combined with the clear break after line 9, may suggest that the poem can also be conceived as three groups of nine plus one, though it must be admitted that the clear break comes after line 17 rather than 18.

45. Dante's structuring of "Amor, tu vedi ben che questa donna" probably owes much to his study of this aspect of "O qui perpetua"; see Chapter 4, pp. 158-162.

46. Among its other microcosmic aspects, there is also evidence that Boethius thought of the poem in terms of numerical composition, especially that number is cited as the binder of the elements (terms with obvious application to poetry, which by definition is built of harmonious numerical proportion among syllables written in elementa—letters; see pp. 22-28, 315-317, for Dante's use of the term ligare to refer to the construction of the canzone stanza). The nominative and other forms of the second-person pronoun occur for a total of either nine or ten times, depending on whether one counts tuo (line 26). If one counts the emphatic series of substantives at the end of the poem, beginning in line 26, including idem as one of them (the quantity of the i marks it as a masculine nominative), the result is exactly nine. Furthermore, da occurs three times in lines 22-23, and the relative pronoun qui/quem occurs three times in lines 1-4. That three is of major significance—no doubt trinitarian—is assured by its explicit occurrence in triplicis . . . naturae, just after the reference to number as the binder of the elements in line 10, and it cannot be accidental that all five lines on the World-Soul have fifteen syllables. It is worth considering also that the number twenty-eight (an exfoliation of the perfect number seven) has a special status in Neoplatonic lore. Macrobius (1970a 29-31) enumerates the following significances: it is the length of the lunar month, as seven is of the week; it is the sum of the first seven digits; it is the number of weeks after which the human fetus may first live if born.

47. Further analysis would no doubt reveal that "O qui perpetua" is a microcosm of the Consolatio in many other ways as well.

48. See pp. 10-II above.

49. The most useful edition is that by Pier Vincenzo Mengaldo (Dante 1979a), which includes an Italian translation and a useful commentary.

50. In addition to Mengaldo's 1979 edition, see his 1968 edition (Dante 1968) and the useful Pazzaglia 1967; Marigo's controversial edition (Dante 1957a) is often useful for commentary.

51. See Chapter 1. break

52. What follows reflects qualified agreement with Pazzaglia 1967.

53. See Monterosso 1970b.

54. Pazzaglia seems to us to have excessively reacted against Marigo's excessive vagueness on this point. Poetic form, as distinct from musical form, imitates the musica mundana in sharply definable ways. The distinction Pazzaglia seeks to draw between Platonic and Aristotelian phases, we believe, lacks foundation: "Dante lascia cadere ogni considerazione della musica 'mundana' e 'umana'. . . . Pur tenendo fermo il principio della proporzione e dell'armonia cosmica, lo interpreta in chiave aristotelico-scolastica, e cioè fisica e naturalistica, piuttosto che matematica. . . . La musica, per Dante, non ha più alcun diretto addentellato metafisico, ma è un'ars con propri caratteri specifici e una propria capacità agogica sulla psicologia dell'uomo" (Pazzaglia 1967 21-22). It is true that music and poetry have each their own autonomy for Dante; that there is no "diretto addentellato metafisico" is overstated.

55. Nancy Vine Durling reminds us of Erich Auerbach's use of this analogy (Auerbach 1953 106) to characterize the laisse of the Chanson de Roland. Auerbach's perceptive remark would seem to be an unconscious echo of the De vulgari eloquentia.

56. 2.xiii.10 seems to contradict itself on this point; see Appendix 4, note 17.

57. See Appendix 4, note 18.

58. See Appendix 4, note 14.

59. This may be the case also in his disdain for lines with an even number of syllables: see 2.v.7; and Appendix 4, notes 6 and 7.

60. This last phrase is somewhat obscure; we believe Mengaldo's translation, "solo per il prestigio dei modelli riconosciuti" ("solely because of the prestige enjoyed by the recognized models [of canzone form]") does not account for the freedom to depart from the models which Dante is assigning to the poet. Rather, Dante's point would seem to be either (1) that the canzone itself, because of its preeminence among vernacular forms, has this authority or (2) that the composition ofcanzoni is ideally restricted to those who have the discretion to make intelligent use of this freedom, in other words to those poets who possess authority, like Dante himself. We incline to the second interpretation, which is consistent with the position explicitly taken in 2.1, where the use of the vulgare illustre latium is restricted to the optime poetantes—the best poets—and in 2.2, where the canzone is identified as the form most suited for the vulgare illustre.

61. See Mengaldo's notes in Dante 1979a 230-233. On Dante's reference to "Amor, tu vedi ben," see Appendix 1.

62. For the iconography of the creation of the world in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, see Zahlten 1969 153-156 and plates 123, 167, 180, 269, 282, 284, 286-290 (many of these show God holding scales as well as compasses); and cf. Friedmann 1974 (and Par. 19.40). For cosmic binding, see Lapidge 1980, whose argument is seriously flawed in omitting from consideration the obvious dependence of most of the passages discussed on Anchises' speech in Aeneid 6.

63. As we show in Chapter 3, this last use of the term in this poem is generic in appearance only: it conceals a specific term.

64. See Boyde 1981 248-255. break

65. See ibid., 263-265.

64. See Boyde 1981 248-255. break

65. See ibid., 263-265.

66. Naturales Historiae 36 and 37.

67. Etymologiarum liber 16 ( PL 82.562-577).

68. Evans (1922) prints a number of Latin and French lapidaries. See also Evans 1933, 1953; Pannier 1882; Albertus Magnus 1967, apps. B and D; and Thorndike 1923-58, vols. 2 and 3.

69. Echoed in Inferno 5 by Francesca's "Amor, che nel cor gentil ratto s'apprende." See also Chapter 3, note 32.

70. This is especially evident because in the traditional doctrine of love Guinizelli is assuming, the lover's desire takes on the form of the beloved as telos (as in Virgilio's discussion in Purgatorio 18.37-39).

71. See below, note 86.

72. Summa theologica Ia, quaest. 70, art. 1. This is the view taken by Beatrice in her explanation of the cause of the spots on the moon in Paradiso 2. There were differences of opinion as to the degree and nature of the heavenly influences, of course; as Nardi pointed out, Aquinas sometimes regarded their influence as a motus ad formam rather than the imposition of form.

73. See the lucid outline in Nardi 1967a 69-95.

74. This adaptation of Ptolemy's and ibn Haitham's treatises on optics was the standard Western text until Kepler.

75. See Crombie 1953 128-134; Crombie 1959 1:99-113. Cf. McEvoy 1982 149-222; and Mazzeo 1960 56-90 and, for the "light-metaphysics" in the Commedia, 91-132.

76. On Albert as a natural scientist, see Thorndike 1923-58 2:517-592; and Weisheipl 1980.

77. See also Riddle and Mulholland 1980.

78. See Chapter 1, pp. 53-54; and Chapter 2, notes 67-68.

79. As Nardi showed (1967 34-58), Albert's views on the development of the fetus were adopted by Dante in several respects where Albert differed sharply from Aquinas.

80. They include Aristotle's Mineralogica, Epiphanius of Constantinople, Avicenna's Liber de congelatione et conglutinatione lapidum (Holmgard and Mandeville 1927), Marbodus, and the encyclopedist Thomas of Cantimpré; see Grant 1987 615-624. On Albert's use of Arnold of Saxony and Thomas of Cantimpré, see Albertus Magnus 1967 68-70.

81. Quaestiones naturales 3.12; Seneca 1961. Interesting and characteristic is the Ovidian turn of phrase, "qui fuerat, aequore erat, fiat super aequora saxum."

82. Evidently Hermes Trismegistus; the text Albert is citing has not been identified; see 1967 273-274.

83. As Nardi showed (1960 69-101), Albert's doctrine of the virtus loci is an extension of Aristotle's notion of the natural place of the elements. See the edition of the De natura loci by Paul Hossfeld (Albertus Magnus 1976); and Hossfeld 1969, 1978.

84. There is a further analogy with the digestion and assimilation of food, Mineralium liber 1.1.8 (1967 12). Albert insists, however, that the vis mineralis is not a soul.

85. This is not strictly true, however, since in Albert's emanationism, based continue

      on the Liber de causis, the first axiom is that any superior cause always acts more strongly than an inferior one that it acts through. See De causis et processu universitatis 2.1.5 (Albertus Magnus 1890-99 10:441-442).

86. The translation has been revised. Albert is not drawing a comparison: the intentio of the angelic intelligence looking into the mind of God is the formal cause of the shaping of the sublunar (as in Guinizelli's poem), though transferred to the vis mineralis. See Nardi 1967b 97-99, 29-31.

87. E.g., De causis et processu universitatis (Albertus Magnus 1890-99 10: 385, 387, 409, 453, 509). "Quod cum intelligentia sit plena formis, imprimit illas formas in materiam per corpora celestia tamquam per instrumenta" (cf. ibid. 2.2.21, pp. 510-511) is one of the propositions condemned by the bishop of Paris in 1277 as heretical (Albert died in 1280). Aquinas, too, seems aimed at in the condemnation of this thesis; see Litt 1963 174-185; Wipfel 1977.

88. All this power is "poured" into the matter itself—Albert had not encountered Occam's razor, "Entia non sunt multiplicanda"! (See Litt 1963 110-148.) The more he tries to free himself from the astrological theory, the more he involves himself in it and in its tendency to personify the forces of nature.

89. Dante states the analogy explicitly in Paradiso 2, a passage that is closely related to Albertus Magnus's conception; see Chapter 2, note 75.

90. We discuss this passage, and other connections of parts of the Commedia with the petrose, in Chapters 2 and 6.

91. Dante 1964 2:16-18. We leave out of consideration here the question of Dante's views on the possible intellect.

92. This was a well known branch of "white" (non-infernal) magic, amply attested from late antiquity and important enough that a fairly large number of treatises exist on it; these are listed by Thorndike 1947. The most important is the Lapidario del rey d. Alfonso X, which classes stones and images according to whether they owe their power to a constellation, a star, a zodiacal sign, a decan, or a planet; there is a facsimile edition of the whole (Fernando-Guerra and de Madrazo 1881) and of the first part (Brey-Mariño 1982).

93. This accounts, in Albert's view, for the fact that many ancient gems have lost their virtus: the precession of the equinoxes has robbed them of it ( Mineralium liber 2.3.3).

94. We accept the ordering of the four poems established by Michele Barbi, as do most modern critics; see Dante 1969; Dante 1979d 192.

95. The self-division of the poet's nature in the poems is one of the important meanings of the mystifying phrase "il geminato cielo" in the first petrosa; see Chapter 2, pp. 95, 106-108. On the solitude of the poet in his cosmos, see Chapter 2, note 2; Chapter 4, pp. 163-164.

96. For the topical references that offer some clues to the chronology of the composition of the Commedia, see Petrocchi 1978.

1. So, for instance, Michele Barbi, in his introduction to the Convivio (Dante 1964 xxv n .1): "La Vita nuova prima di quest'applicazione doveva esser già composta, perché altrimenti non si giustificherebbe la citazione di quell'opera per continue

      provare che avanti tali sue letture e tali suoi studi 'molte cose quasi come sognando già vedea."' The misunderstanding rests on the ambiguity of Dante's last phrase, in which the già and the imperfect vedea can be taken to refer to a time before the readings referred to, if one disregards the fact that avea and potea are also imperfects and thus do not support the distinction. But now that it is established that the Consolatio and the De amicitia were in fact important influences on the Vita nuova (see next note), it is clear that the passage means, "once having penetrated into those books, I saw many things in them, as can be seen from the Vita nuova, but imperfectly (in the light of the better comprehension that I now have), thus as if dreaming." On the whole passage, see Dante 1988 201-212.

2. See esp. De Robertis 1970 60-68. Nardi (1967a 201) comments: "Questo libro di Boezio non è affatto vero che fosse poco conosciuto. Era anzi una delle opere più lette e commentate dai dotti nelle scuole, ed era largamente penetrato persino nelle letterature volgari." The Consolatio is a protreptic—that is, one of its aims is to win adherents to the study of philosophy; as such, it is very much suited for an introductory course, one of the reasons it was so frequently used in schools. It may well have been one of the first texts Dante heard discussed. See the review of recent scholarship on the Florentine studia in Davis 1984 and Dante 1988 204-210.

3. Tateo 1970 is an excellent survey of the question.

4. In addition to the works already cited, see Nardi 1960.

5. It forms approximately 6 percent of the total: see Dondaine 1953 84-89, 135-138. We note that Nardi assumes, without discussion, that when Dante was reading the Liber de causis he was also reading the De divinis nominibus (1949 55-57). Whenever he read it, the probability is strong that he read it with both the Maximus and the Pseudo-Maximus (Eriugena) glosses (however, none of the passages from Eriugena quoted below are from the latter; it is possible, but not very likely, that Dante knew the De divisione naturae itself).

      I. P. Sheldon-Williams (in Armstrong 1967 532-533) gives a convenient summary of Eriugena's influence:

Both as a translator and as an original writer, Eriugena's influence was to prove considerable. The Dionysian versions form the basis for those of Saracenus and Grossteste (written in clearer Latin and from better texts), and therefore underlie the curriculum of the philosophical schools where the ps.-Dionysius was the chief authority until superseded by Aristotle in the thirteenth century, and the tradition of Western mysticism, which also derives from the ps.-Dionysius. The doctrines of the Periphyseon were taught by Eriugena's disciples and their followers, such as Remigius, Heiric of Auxerre and the mysterious "Icpa." The work was epitomized by Honorious of Autun . . . and others. It was widely read among the Cathars, and was supposed to have inspired some of the heresies of Almeric of Bena and David of Dinant, and was condemned in the thirteenth century in consequence.

And yet it continued to be influential; for although no further copies were made after the twelfth century and many then existing must have suffered the fate of heretical works, and although the first printed edi- soft

tion, which appeared in 1681, was immediately placed on the Index, much of the text was preserved in glosses to the Latin Dionysius, in which form it was studied by, among others, St. Albert the Great. Eriugena, therefore, though banned and unacknowledged, has been a formative influence in the tradition not only of Western mysticism, but also of medieval scholasticism.

      For an excellent recent introduction to Eriugena's thought and influence, see O'Meara 1988. For the question of Dante's knowledge of Eriugena, see Dronke 1965 and Allard 1987.

6. This major text was commented by William of Champeaux, Grosseteste, Thomas of Verceil, Albertus Magnus, Aquinas, Ulrich of Strasburg, perhaps Alain of Lille, and many others; see De Bruyne 1946 vol. 3. Albert's and Aquinas's are naturally the most likely commentaries for Dante to have known. The presence of a fairly full collection of Aquinas's commentaries at Santa Croce has been established (see Davis 1988 342-346) and of course would be expected at Santa Maria Novella.

7. I. P. Sheldon-Williams (1972 215n.) writes:

Dialectic ["in the Platonic conception . . . as the combined operation of division and collection"], from being simply a branch of philosophy, becomes in Neoplatonism, through the process of analogy, the whole of philosophy. . . . Division . . . is the process by which the descent is made from the One to the Many, and analytic the means by which the ascent or return is made from the Many to the One; that is to say, they are the descent from, and the return to, a Principle which remains always what it was. Dialectic and its Source, which is also its End, thus comprise the triad monê-próodos-epistrophê, by which the Neoplatonists reconciled the transcendence with the immanence of God. But the thoroughness with which Eriugena applies the principles of Dialectic finds no parallel in the system of any predecessor.

8. For the De divinis nominibus, see von Ivánka 1940 (also in von Ivánka 1964).

9. In the third of the petrose, "Amor, tu vedi ben che questa donna," we find a clear interest in the question of the divine names; see Chapter 4, pp. 157-158, with notes.

10. Dante 1980 37-44. All quotations from the Vita nuova are to this edition.

11. Sandkühler 1967 41-42, 50-53. De Robertis (1970 208-222), on the basis of some impressive verbal parallels, has argued for the influence on the divisioni of Brunetto Latini's Retorica.

12. The most interesting example of "reticent commentary," aside from chapter 19, is perhaps chapter 25; Dante's answer to the imagined doubt regarding the figure of Love in fact raises more questions than it answers: for Dante's claim that vernacular poets have the same license as Latin poetae, including that of using personification if they can provide a ratio for its use, does not constitute a ratio of his use of it. Dante asserts that he could furnish an explanation if he chose to; his not doing so calls attention to itself. See Chapter 4, note 50.

13. We reject the famous theory of the esoteric group of "fedeli d'Amore" developed by L. Valli and his followers. A detailed statement of the arguments continue

      would take us too far afield; suffice it to say that like other "allegorical" interpretations of Dante's lyric poems, it rests on inadequate comprehension of the literal sense of the poems.

14. De Robertis (Dante 1980 132, note on a troppi ) summarizes thus: "è intelligibile anche troppo, si abbia o no ingegno da intendere"; as we shall see, this misses the point completely.

15. As De Robertis observes (Dante 1980 129), this is also the only poem whose division is preceded by introductory remarks.

16. Shaw 1929 119-120.

17. Spitzer 1937; in Spitzer 1976 131-132. Spitzer is in polemic here with J. E. Shaw, who had maintained that the "ostensible theme" of the praise of Beatrice masked the "real theme" of Dante's anxieties and dependence on her, which he was reluctant to make explicit by dividing stanzas 2 and 3.

18. Spitzer was equally complacent in his claim that the last stanza is no easier to understand than the earlier ones: "dal momento che Dante, riguardo all'ultima strofa, come pure in altri casi, afferma che essa è 'lieve ad intendere' e pertanto non abbisogna di suddivisione, egli deve pensare la stessa cosa anche delle altre" (1976 132). Here is an obvious undistributed middle term (stanza 5, easy to understand, is undivided; 2 and 3 are undivided; therefore stanzas 2 and 3 are easy to understand—this would be valid only if every undivided text were easy to understand).

19. Dante 1980 52-53. De Robertis refers the subdivisions to rhetorical practice: "più artificiosamente: con più arte, ossia con più 'sottili' (xli,9) o 'minute' (cfr. 22) partizioni (a metterne in rilievo appunto l'artificiosa e complessa struttura retorica), ossia, come vedremo, per gradi successivi (gliene offrivan modello le partizioni delle scienze, coi relativi 'alberi,' nella Retorica di Brunetto, 48-55), ma si ponga mente soprattutto alla tripartizione fondamentale, che sarà ripresa per la canzone in morte di Beatrice (xxxi,3) e per la seconda canzone del Convivio (III,i,13), ed essa stessa arieggiante le partizioni del discorso della retorica classica" (p. 129). Valid enough observations, which do not unlock the puzzle. As far as the models for the procedure of division are concerned (and without derogating from the impressive parallels De Robertis found between Vita nuova and Retorica —though not specifically in the divisione of "Donne ch'avete"), here is a good example from the beginning of Aquinas's commentary on the Pseudo-Dionysius's De divinis nominibus:

In hoc igitur libro, qui "de divinis Nominibus" inscribitur, more eorum qui artificiose scientias tradiderunt, primo, praemittit quaedam necessaria ad sequentem considerationem; secundo, incipit prosequi principale intentum in 3 cap. quod incipit ibi: Et primam  . . .

Circa primum, duo facit: primo, ostendit rationem divinorum Nominum; secundo, ostendit quod Nomina, de quibus in hoc libro tractatur, sunt communia toti Trinitati; et hoc 2° cap. quod incipit ibi: Thearchicam totam essentiam  . . .

Circa primum, duo facit: primo, continuat se ad praecedentem librum, ubi alloquens beatum Timotheum, dicit quod post Theologicas Hypotyposes, idest divinas distinctiones quibus personae in Trinitate ad in- soft

vicem distinguntur, transibit ad reserationem, idest manifestationem, divinorum Nominum, secundum suam possibilitatem. Perfecte enim ea exponere supra hominem esse videtur.

Secundo, ibi: Esto  . . . , incipit praemittere quaedam necessaria ad sequens opus. Praemittit autem duo: primo, quidem, modum procedendi in hoc opere, hoc enim necessarium est praescire in qualibet doctrina. Secundo, ostendit rationem divinorum Nominum de quibus in hoc libro intendit; ibi: Has sequentes. . . .
(Aquinas 1950 6)

      As can readily be seen, dividing only the second of two members was not customary and would have been noticed as unusual by anyone familiar with exegetical practice. For that matter, here is a particularly striking example of a series of divisions of only the first members, from the commentary of Albertus Magnus on the De divinis nominibus (Albert's insistence here is of course motivated by the fact that he is isolating the very first members of his text; the rest of his commentary divides the entire treatise in more or less equal detail):

Dividitur enim iste liber in duas partes. In prima determinat de nominibus divinis, quae ad suam considerationem pertinent in communi. In secundo determinat de unoquoque in speciali, in quarto capitulo, ibi Si igitur oportet iam etc. Prima pars dividitur in tres partes. In prima determinat de ipsis nominibus communiter ostendens modum significandi ipsorum. In secunda dividit divina nomina in primas suas differentias, scilicet quod quaedam dicuntur unite de personis et quaedam distincte, quibus adhuc non devenitur in specialia nomina, in secundo capitulo, ibi: Thearchicam. In tertia determinat modum accipiendi cognitionem istorum nominum, in tertio capitulo, ibi: Et primum, si videtur etc. Prima pars dividitur in duas. In prima ostendit modum, quo deus significatur istis nominibus; in secunda dicit se velle determinare de istis nominibus secundum determinatum modum, ibi: Nunc autem quaecumque sunt praesentia etc. Item prima dividitur in duas. In prima ostendit quo et a quibus significatur deus per huiusmodi nomina; in secunda, qualiter significatur, ibi: Istis deiformes etc. Item prima dividitur in duas. In prima ostendit quo significatur deus, quia per sacram scripturam, in secunda, a quibus, quia a sanctis viris, ibi: De hac, igitur, sicut dictum est etc. Prima pars dividitur in duas. In prima continuat se ad quendam librum, quem fecit de divinis personis, quem non habemus; in secunda ostendit, quod per sacram scripturam nobis deus nominatur, ibi: Esto autem et nunc etc.
(Albertus Magnus 1972 3)

20. The only exception is Durling's presentation of an earlier version of this chapter at the April 1975 meeting of the Medieval Academy of America, "Reticent Commentary in the Middle Ages: Vita nuova 19 and 25."

21. Dante uses the term of the divine procession in Convvivio 3.2.4; as Bruno Nardi shows (1967 92-94), that is a passage derived from the Liber de causis.

22. Thus God's speech provides an instance of the Dionysian triad powerjustice-peace, again based on monê-próodos-epistrophê. See Introduction, note 39.

23. These lines have occasioned some puzzlement: does Dante mean he will be damned? Or can he be referring to the Inferno? Pazzaglia (1970) usefully continue

      summarizes the debates; and cf. J. E. Shaw's attentive analyses of the positions prior to 1929 (1929 122-128).

      Foster and Boyde (Dante 1967 2:99-100), opting for the first possibility above, cite "Lo doloroso amor che mi conduce," lines 32-42, which do say, to paraphrase, " if God does not forgive me for my sins, my soul will depart to the torment it will deserve, and it will not fear; for it will be so intent to imagine her that it will feel no pain; so that, if I have lost her in this world, in the next world Love will pay tribute to me." But it is one thing to have the speaker say if, another thing to have God himself predict one's damnation. In the terms set up by "Donne ch'avete," not to speak of the Vita nuova as a whole, the speaker's insight into Beatrice's radiance and his knowledge of what is said about her in heaven would make it self-contradictory for line 28 to mean that he will be one of the damned; rather, the vision of heaven offered in stanza 2, not to speak of his insight into Beatrice's perfections, places him clearly among the worthy, among those who have "stayed to gaze on her" (line 35); cf. De Robertis's comment: "le parole rivolte ai 'mal nati', quello squarcio di luce nell'abisso, non saranno trasposizione della discesa all'inferno del Salvatore?" (1970 132 n .1). Furthermore, in our view, the implication of the return of colui from hell is required as part of the system of parallelisms among the various types of return in the poem.

      In short, the notion that lines 27-28 predict Dante's damnation goes against the clear sense of the text and against the plan of the entire Vita nuova. Do we then have to conclude that the passage is a later revision or that Dante was already planning the Commedia when he first wrote the Vita nuova? No, only that some of the grandiose possibilities of the theme of procession and return as a basis for poetic structure had begun to dawn on him.

24. Again, see Introduction, note 39.

25. The influential Maximus the Confessor distinguished five divisions by which the world came into existence: (1) "that which divides from the uncreated nature created nature in general"; (2) "that by which the universal and simultaneously created nature is divided into intelligibles and sensibles"; (3) that "by which visible nature is divided into heaven and earth"; (4) that "by which the earth is divided into paradise and the inhabited globe"; (5) that "by which man himself, who, well and beautifully . . . added to the sum of things that are—as a most effective agent of the continuity of all, in everything naturally establishing in himself a mediation between all extremes effected by every difference—is divided into male and female."

Quarum [scil. divisionum] primam  inquit esse aiunt eam, quae a non creata natura creatam universaliter naturam et per generationem esse accipientem dividit . . . . Secundam vero per quam ipsa simul omnis natura a deo per creationem esse accipiens dividitur in intelligibilia et sensibilia. Tertiam deinceps per quam ipsa sensibilis natura dividitur in caelum ac terram; quartam itidem per quam terra dividitur in paradisum et orbem terrarum, et quintam per quam ipse in omnibus veluti quaedam cunctorum continuatissima officina omnibusque per omnem differentiam ex- soft

tremitatibus per se ipsum naturaliter medietatem faciens bene ac pulchre secundum generationem his quae sunt superadditus homo in masculum feminamque dividitur.
(Eriugena's version in the De divisione naturae 2.3; text and translation from Sheldon-Williams 1972; cf. PL 122.530)

      See below, note 30.

      For Dante's later emanationism, see Paradiso 2.112-138, and Nardi's discussions (1960 16-20, 97-106); cf. Introduction, pp. 41-43, and Chapter 2, note 75.

26. On the relation between the terms of rhetoric and metaphysics, see Introduction, p. 18, and above, note 7.

27. Barbi's note reads, in part: "I manoscritti sia della Vita nuova sia delle rime varie sono concordi in legger viso; né ci è ragione di scostarsi della loro testimonianza, ben potendo il poeta aver voluto vedere in là 've non pote alcun mirarlafiso la determinazione di una parte del viso, cioè la bocca" (Dante 1932 78 n .). Once it is decided that the mouth is meant, Barbi's point is no doubt valid; but it is more natural to take the lines as referring to the eyes, in the tradition and in Dante the usual place where Love is visible (see Foster and Boyde's note on "Al poco giorno," line 16—Dante 1967 2:267).

28. The phrase cosa nova picks up cosa mortale from line 53; it may well refer to Beatrice's death, the chief occasion on which the "friendship of the number nine for her" is manifested; see Vita nuova, chapter 29.

29. For Dante's use of the term in other contexts, particularly with nonThomistic (i.e., Neoplatonic) emphasis, see Nardi 1967 345-346.

30. On Maximus's fifth division (see note 25 above), Eriugena comments (in a late addition):

. . . extremitates hic vocat invisibilem sensibilemque creaturam quae a se invicem veluti longissimo spatio naturali differentia discrepant. Sunt enim naturarum conditarum duo extremi termini sibimet oppositi, sed humana natura medietatem eis praestat; in ea enim sibi invicem copulantur et de multis unum fiunt. Nulla enim creatura est, a summis usque deorsum, quae in homine non reperiatur. Ideoque officina omnium jure nominatur.
(text and translation from Sheldon-Williams 1972 18-19; cf. PL 122.530)

. . . by the extremes he here means the invisible creature and the sensible creature, which by natural difference differ from one another as though by a very wide space. For they are opposed to one another as the two extremes of created natures; but human nature supplies a middle term between them, for in it they are joined to one another, and from being many become one. For there is no creature, from the highest to the lowest, which is not found in man, and that is why he is rightly called "agent (of continuity)" [ officina, literally "workshop," translating ergasterion; see Sheldon-Williams 1972 218-219, note 9] of all things [this final sentence is a quotation from Maximus]. break

      Eriugena quotes Maximus again in the influential passage in Book 3 (again based on Maximus, contaminated with Gregory the Great—see Chapter 2, note 84):

 . . . non immerito dicitur homo creaturarum omnium officina quoniam in ipso universalis creatura continetur. Intelligit quidem ut angelus, ratiocinatur ut homo, sentit ut animal irrationale, vivit ut germen, corpore animoque subsistit, nullius creaturae expers.
( De divisione naturae 3.37 [Sheldon-Williams 1981 286; PL 122.733])

      Eriugena's De divisione naturae, along with his translations of Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus, is thus a main intermediary of the idea of man as the copula of all creation:

inter primordiales rerum causas homo ad imaginem Dei factus est ut omnis creatura et intelligibilis et sensibilis, ex quibus veluti diversis extremitatibus compositus unum inseparabile fieret, et ut esset medietas et adunatio omnium creaturarum.
(Sheldon-Williams 1972 28; PL 122.536; emphasis added)

      See Gregory 1955 103-104 and 104 n .3. For the history of the idea from Plato to Eriugena, see Sheldon-Williams 1972 219-220 n .62.

      In a famous passage, Dante writes of man as "the horizon between the corruptible and the incorruptible" ( Monarchia 3.16):

Homo solus in entibus tenet medium corruptibilium et incorruptibilium; propter quod recte a phylosophis assimilatur orizonti, qui est medium duorum emisperiorum. Nam homo, si consideretur secundum utranque partem essentialem, scilicet animam et corpus: corruptibilis est si consideretur tantum secundum corpus; si vero secundum alteram, scilicet animam, incorruptibilis est. . . . Si ergo homo medium quoddam est corruptibilium et incorruptibilium, cum omne medium sapiat naturam extremorum, necesse est hominem sapere utranque naturam. Et cum omnis natura ad ultinum quendam finem ordinetur, consequitur ut hominis duplex finis existat: ut, sicut inter omnia entia solus incorruptibilitatem et corruptibilitatem participat, sic solus inter omnia entia in duo ultima ordinetur, quorum alterum sit finis eius prout corruptibilis est, alterum vero prout incorruptibilis.
(we cite Nardi's edition, Dante 1979C 496-498, but accept the traditional emendation in lemma 4)

For man alone among beings holds the mean between the corruptible and the incorruptible; for which reason he is rightly likened by the philosophers to the horizon, which is the mean between two hemispheres. For man, if he is considered according to both his essential parts, namely soul and body: he is corruptible if considered only according to the body, but if considered according to his other part, his soul, he is incorruptible . . . . If then man is a certain mean between corruptible and incorruptible things, since every mean partakes [literally, tastes] of the nature continue

of the extremes, man must partake [literally, taste] of both natures. And since every nature is ordered to some final end, it follows that man's final end is double: so that, just as he alone among beings participates in both corruptibility and incorruptibility, so he alone among beings is ordered to two final ends, of which one is his end in so far as he is corruptible, the other in so far as he is incorruptible.

      Nardi (1967b 89-91) showed that this passage involves one of Dante's borrowings from the Liber de causis, where it refers to the World-Soul, as Aquinas and Albert both point out in their commentaries (cited by Nardi); the horizon is between time and eternity: "Esse autem quod est post aeternitatem et supra tempus est anima; quoniam est in orizonte aeternitatis inferius et supra tempus."

      Albert and Aquinas both define horizon as the juncture of two hemispheres; it would seem that Dante's substitution of the terms the corruptible and the incorruptible for time and eternity (not considered by Nardi, who also seems unfamiliar with the application of the idea to man himself, as opposed to the World-Soul—see his notes, Dante 1979c) is a contamination of the Liber de causis passages with the passages we have quoted from Eriugena and the Greek fathers and provides further possible evidence for his familiarity with them. Alexander of Hales and Bonaventure are further possible sources; see Theiler 1970; and Schneider 1960, 1961. See also next note and above, note 25.

      The interesting phrase sapere utranque naturam seems to be related to one of the parallels R. B. Woolsey found between Bernard Silvester's Megacosmos and the second-century Hermetic Asclepius: according to him, Bernard's "curabit utrumque" (referring to the body and the spirit, or earthly and heavenly realities) echoes the Asclepius statement, in a similar context, that man is "ex utraque natura" (Woolsey 1948 343). See Nock 1973 324; Bernard cites the idea of man as medietas in the following passage:

Mentem de caelo, corpus trahet ex elementis, 
   Ut terras habitet corpore, mente polum. 
Mens, corpus diversa licet iungentur ad unum, 
   Ut  sacra  conplacitum  nexio  reddat opus. 
Divus erit, terrenus erit, curabit utrumque 
   Consiliis mundum, religione deos. 
Naturis poterit sic respondere duabus, 
   Et sic principiis congruus esse suis. 
Ut divina colat, pariter terrena capessat, 
   Et  geminae  curam sedulitatis agat, 
Cum superis commune bonum rationis habebit. 
             (Bernard Silvester 1876 55; emphasis added)

      He will take his mind from the heavens, his body from the elements, that he may live on earth with his body, in the sky with his mind. Mind and body, though they be different, will be yoked together, that the sacred nexus may make the work pleasing. He will be divine and he will be earthly, he will concern himself with both: the world with his counsels, continue

the gods with his worship. Thus he will be able to be dutiful with two natures and thus be worthy of his beginnings. That he may cultivate divine things, and at the same time grasp earthly things, following his concerns with twinned sedulity, he will share with the gods the good of reason.

      Dante's use of this traditional Neoplatonic notion to found his doctrine of the two goals of human existence is of course one of the capital points of the Monarchia. In a parallel but narrower way, we find his characteristic refusal to give up either side of human experience in the petrose as well. See Chapter 2, pp. 106-108.

31. In particular of the division into male and female sexes, regarded by the Greek fathers as foreign to the ideal essence of humanity and an anticipation of the Fall. The disappearance, in the resurrected Christ, of the sexual (based on Galatians 3:28) was seen as the first stage of the cosmic reunification; Eriugena's discussion of this idea is in PL 122.530-536, based mainly on Maximus, and 794-815, based mainly on Gregory of Nyssa. See Sheldon-Williams's lucid account (1972 217-218 n .42). Eriugena quotes at great length from Gregory of Nyssa's De hominis opficio (chap. 16: PG 44.177-188) in his section on the division of the sexes ( De divisione naturae 4.12-17: PL 122.794-830); for instance, the following passage is close to the others we have cited on man as medietas:

Duorum quorundam per extremitatem a se invicem distantium medium est humanitas, divinae videlicet incorporalisque naturae, et irrationabilis pecudalisque vitae. Licet enim utrumque praedictorum in humana comparatione considerari: portionem quidem Dei quod rationabile est et intellectuale, quod iuxta masculum et feminam differentiam non admittit, irrationabilis vero corporalem constitutionem et duplicationem in masculum et feminam partitam. Utrumque horum est omnino in omnibus humanam vitam participantibus.
( PL 122.795; cf. PG 44.181-182; cf. Introduction, note 29)

Human nature is the mean between two natures extremely distant from each other, namely the divine and incorporeal nature and the irrational life of beasts. For we can consider both of them in the composition of man: the portion of God, what is reasonable and intellectual, which does not admit of difference according to male and female; and on the other hand the bodily constitution of the irrational, duplicated and divided into male and female. Both of these are in all those who participate in human life.

32. See above, note 28.

33. See Introduction, note 32.

34. Except perhaps in his use of the term finire in lines 3 and 42.

35. See Introduction, pp. 15-17, and cf. above, notes 30 and 31, in particular Gregory of Nyssa's situating human nature between the divine/incorporeal and the bodily.

36. See Introduction, note 27; the symmetrical arrangement of meters in the Consolatio may also have influenced Dante's arrangement of verse forms in the Vita nuova. break

37. As Nardi (1967b 89-94) showed, Dante's citations of the Liber de causis regularly turn what is said there of the World-Soul to apply to the human soul, a tendency already visible in his adaptation of Boethius to "Donne ch'avete"; cf. Gregory 1955 123-174; and Gregory 1957. This is also true of many of the commentaries on "O qui perpetua" assembled by Pierre Courcelle (1967). In the Paradiso, of course, Dante has Beatrice speak of the angels as "enlivening" their respective spheres (which he calls "organs of the world"— Paradiso 2.121), and says that their "power" ( virtù ) is joined to the spheres in a way similar to the union of soul and body in man ( Paradiso 2.139-144); the ambiguity of the passage is no doubt intentional. Dante was probably familiar with the discussion by Albertus Magnus of Avicenna's and Averroës's positions (Avicenna favored incarnation of the heavenly intelligences, Averroës regarded them as separated; Albert expresses some doubt but opts for Averroës and Alpetragius) in the De causis etprocessu universitatis 1.4.7 (Albertus Magnus 1890-98 10:423-427). But he avoids the concept of the World-Soul as such.

38. On which Barbi (Dante 1932 cclxiii) states: "Poca sembra essere stata, per le lezioni di senso, la corruzione introdotta nel testo nel passaggio dall'autografo al capostipite delle due tradizioni. In generale fra a e b c'è accordo perfetto."

39. Cf. Barbi's observations on the integral relation of the divisioni to the rest of the text, contra Boccaccio's relegation of them to the margins (ibid., xvi-xviii).

40. There is a close relation between "Donne ch'avete" and the second canzone of the Convivio, "Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona," which is usually dated around 1294. From the point of view of our discussion here, one of the most striking things about the later canzone is that it completely avoids reference to the pattern of procession/return, despite the fact that it associates the lady it sings of with the biblical figure of Sapientia (often identified with the Logos). See Vincenzo Pernicone's excellent discussion (1970a). We accept his view (which follows Barbi's) that this canzone was probably originally composed with allegorical intent (i.e., the lady was Philosophy).

1. On "Io son venuto al punto de la rota" there are classic discussions by Neri (1914); Contini (1946 xx-xxi, 149-150; all citations below are to this edition); and Renucci (1958 67-70, 72-75). See also Damon 1961; and Boyde 1971 48, 141-147, 288-299, and passim. Fenzi's (1966) discussion of "Io son venuto" is particularly fine; we have relied heavily on his scrupulous résumés of earlier scholarship. Goldin (1973 345-351; see note io below) has some perceptive pages on the implied solitude of the speaker in this poem.

2. See Aeneid 4.522-532 (quoted in Chapter 5, note 77), which includes the following details that appear in "Io son venuto": the motion of the stars (line 524); the silence of birds and animals (525-527); the increase of care ( "ingeminant curae," 531); the rising of a tide or flood (531-532); the use of the conjunction at (see Chapter 5, note 78). See Friedrich's suggestive discussion (1964 250-251). For connections between Book 4 of the Aeneid and the other petrose, continue

      especially "Così nel mio parlar," see Chapter 5, pp. 180-185. For Aeneid 8, see Chapter 6, note 23.

      The persistence of love in winter is a not uncommon form of this topic; along with the renewal of love in the springtime it is one of the so-called topics of exordium (see Curtius 1953 80-84, 193-194). Dante's poem draws, then, on a tradition represented by such medieval Latin lyrics as the famous "De ramis cadunt folia" (no. 234 in Raby 1959); it has a direct connection with a number of poems by Arnaut Daniel, the "miglior fabbro del parlar materno," as Dante calls him in the Purgatorio (26.117), whose influence on the petrose is of course considerable, particularly in terms of his cult of trobar clus, or difficult style (see Daniel 1960 nos. 3, 9, ii, 16, and pp. 65-106; cf. Fenzi 1966 247-253). An important suggestion for the poem seems to have been derived from poems by Arnaut's brilliant predecessor and master, Raimbaut d' Aurenga, especially the winter poem "Or resplan la flors enversa" (see Chapter 5, note 36). Bernart de Ventadour also has a winter poem, "Tant ai mo cor pie de joya," which explicitly claims the increase of poetic ability in the winter:

3. Fenzi (1966 255) notes, along with the traditionally recognized theme ("strofa per strofa aspetti d'una natura invernale caratterizzati da una serie di trasformazioni tipiche—str. 2-5—s'oppongono all'inalterabile ardore dei 'pensier d'amore'"), a second theme, "interwoven" with the first: "il tema della corrispondenza tra la condizione personale e l'ordine naturale delle cose che lo conferma. E' una conferma implicita—le dichiarazioni di Dante sono per la prima interpretazione—che in primis s'affida al tema della violenza: come la natura soffre ferite e trasformazioni che l'offendono e ne rovesciano le leggi: [citing stanza 5] così il poeta sopporta una violenza che lo blocca in uno stato innaturale, in cui la sua mente è 'più dura che petra' e in cui egli giunge a desiderare il suo male" (pp. 255-256). Fenzi then notes a series of correspondences within stanzas: (1) the "forte imagine" corresponds to fatal necessity deriving from the stars; (2) whereas the first stanza stressed immobility, here there is motion, both of the wind and of Love's spiderwebs; (3) this stanza rests on recognition of kinship with the animals: "entrambi si riconoscono in un'alterna vicenda [Fenzi seems unaware of his echo of Ovid's—and Seneca's— alternae vices here] di felicità e di tristezza, d'amore e di disamore . . . prevedibile e aperto l'uno, interno, fitto, e problematico I'altro" (p. 257); (4) the spina recalls the trees of the earlier part of the stanza; (5) the poet's guerra recalls the grande assalto of the winter (pp. 256-258). Fenzi also notes that it is the central stanza of the poem where it is said that "sweet thoughts are not given to me nor taken away by the turning of time," and observes that the last two stanzas have a "giuoco di chiaroscuro più mosso, dove la memoria del verde e dei fiori sopravvive alla loro morte e dove l'incalzante presente si rompe . . . e si ricompone" continue

       (pp. 257-258). Although he has little to say about the astrology of the poem (but see his apt quotation from Seneca on p. 243), Fenzi's perceptive discussion represents an impressive advance over earlier readings.

4. For the form of the stanza, see Figure 1. Each of the four groups of lines—(a) ABC; (b) ABC; (c) CDE; (d) eD FF —is syntactically independent from the others, and between stanzas corresponding groups are to a large extent syntactically parallel. Parallels of content between stanzas are frequent; for instance, part a in each stanza except the last mentions the stars; part b in each stanza uses metaphors of closing, hiding, veiling; part c in each stanza refers to death. The list could be prolonged.

5. Nardi 1967 110-138, esp. 112-114. See also Damon 1961 317-318. Nardi supposed that Convivio 2.26.6 rested on a misunderstanding of Aristotle's De caelo; we think rather than it shows the extent to which Dante's thinking was permeated with astrological conceptions, for that a planet's influence is drastically reduced when it sinks below the horizon is a commonplace of the astrological literature. See, for instance, Dante's canzone "Poscia ch'Amor del tutto m'ha lasciato," lines 96-101 (emphasis added):

Al gran pianeta è tutta simigliante 
che, dal levante 
avante  infino a tanto che s'asconde, 
co li bei raggi infonde 
vita e vertù qua giuso 
ne la matera sì com'è disposta . . .

6. In Convivio 3.5.13-22, Dante compares the spiral path of the sun to the turning of a screw; imagining how the sun would appear to a city ("Maria") at the North Pole, he writes (Dante 1964 1:312-313):

Però conviene che Maria veggia nel principio de l'Ariete, quando lo sole va sotto lo mezzo cerchio de li primi poli, esso sole girar lo mondo intorno giù a la terra, o vero al mare, come una mola de la quale non paia più che mezzo lo corpo suo; e questa veggia venir montando a guisa d'una vite dintorno, tanto che compia novanta e una rota e poco più.

      Cf. Boyde 1981 151-152, 340. See Chapter 3, note 52.

7. The fact that the first three rhymes of the sirma (i.e., those of part c )CDE—are parallel to the rhyme scheme of parts a and b—ABC—contributes to the sense of a continuation of the frons, as opposed to the break associated with the sirma.

8. Another peculiarity of the technique of the stanza intensifies this effect: the insistent anaphora whereby part d in each stanza begins with "e." It is coupled with an intermittent but still insistent pattern of anaphora throughout: in every stanza except the last, part c begins with "e," and in the first three stanzas part b also begins with "e." Also, with the exception of the first stanza, all the stanzas of the poem begin with a finite verb in syntactic inversion.

      There seems a clear analogy between Dante's turning of the stanza on the adversative e and the similar (though not systematic) turns in Raimbaut de Vac- soft

      queiras's "D'Amor nom lau, qu'anc non pogey tan aut," lines 12-13 (". . . e la bella felhona / sap") and 23-24 (e 'lh trefana, sol quar e belha res, / val") (Linskill 1964 117-118). For the connections with "Così nel mio parlar," see Chapter 5, pp. 176-179.

9. The observation is common in astronomical handbooks: in the northern hemisphere, winter is four days shorter than summer. Calcidius makes the point in his commentary on the Timaeus (Plato 1962 162).

10. Like the parallel with birdsong, these are topics of the Natureingang studied by Scheludko; see E. M. Ghil, in Keller et al. 1986 87-99. For the relation to this tradition of "Io son venuto," see Goldin 1973 351, which, however, overstates the narrowness of reference of the troubadour tradition and fails to see the importance of the Virgilian and other classical precedents.

11. See Cornford 1937 on Timaeus 43d. The question of the relation between the pedes and the sirma of the poem is thus more complex than suggested above, to the extent that the repetition of the pedes makes them akin to the motion of the Same.

12. The principal arguments on which the dating of the poem rests were already assembled in Angelitti 1901, a paper delivered in July 1900.

13. Since Angelitti it has been customary to understand remota as referring to superior conjunction, when Venus is on the opposite side of the sun from the earth (in Dante's terms, at the highest point of its deferent, but still below the sun); superior conjunctions of Venus and the sun in Capricorn took place during Dante's lifetime in December 1272, 1280, 1288, 1296, 1304, 1312, and 1320; inferior conjunctions in Capricorn also took place at roughly eight-year intervals, thus, during Dante's adult years, in December 1284, 1292, 1300, 1308, and 1316. Dante does not say that Venus is "remote" pure and simple, however; he says it is remote because of the rays of the sun.

14. If the planet is the full moon (full because of "tutto"), the conjunction of Venus and the sun cannot possibly be superior, for such a conjunction in Capricorn did not take place even once during Dante's lifetime at a full moon or even close to one. Inferior conjunctions of Venus and the sun in Capricorn did take place at or near the full moon, however, in 1284, 1292, 1300, and 1308, which thus become astronomically possible dates for the stanza, whatever their unlikelihood on other grounds may be.

15. This astronomical phenomenon is associated with the so-called night circle, the portion of a circle of latitude (on the earth) that is in darkness at any given time; its correlate is the "day circle." At the equinox, the sun is at the latitude of the equator and its rays are perpendicular to the axis of the earth; therefore, at all latitudes day and night are of equal length: day circle and night circle are equal. When the sun is below the equator (i.e., from the autumnal equinox to the vernal equinox), most of the northern hemisphere is in shadow and the nights are shorter than the days; this can be plotted on a circle for any given latitude and any given day. The night circle is greatest and the day circle smallest at the winter solstice; when the sun moves above the equator again (at the vernal equinox), the phenomenon is exactly reversed at each latitude. Dante continue

      refers to the night circle in the first line of the second petrosa, "Al poco giorno e al gran cerchio d'ombra." See Chapter 3, pp. 111-113.

16. Data from Tuckerman 1964; they have been corrected for the latitude and longitude of Florence.

17. Chaucer's Wife of Bath is the most celebrated instance of this combination; as she says, "Myn ascendent was Taur, and Mars therinne" (Chaucer 1957 82). The seminal discussion is Curry 1926 104-132. Contra Curry, see North 1969 133, 280-283; contra North, Smyser 1970. See also Wood 1970, who is biased against the importance of astrology in Chaucer.

18. Saturn was retrograde from mid-September 1296 until the last week of February, Mars from early October until the very end of December (data from Tuckerman 1964).

19. This assumes, of course, that the configuration is a horoscope, that is, literally, an inspection of the hour, because the hour is significant as some sort of kairós; the idea is certainly implied by the poem.

20. See Macrobius Saturnalia 1.10.18-22. Ptolemy gives a convenient summary: "Saturn, when he gains sole dominance, is in general the cause of destruction by cold, and, in particular, when the event concerns men, causes long illnesses, consumptions, withering, disturbances caused by fluids, rheumatisms and quartan fevers, exile, poverty, imprisonment, mourning, fears, and deaths, especially among those advanced in age . . . . With regard to weather, he causes fearful cold, freezing, misty and pestilential; corruption of the air, clouds, and gloom; furthermore, multitudes of snowstorms, not beneficial but destructive, from which are produced the reptiles harmful to man. As for the rivers and seas, in general he causes storms, the wreck of fleets, disastrous voyages, and the scarcity and death of fish, and in particular the high and ebb tides and in rivers excessive floods and pollution of their waters. As for the crops of the earth, he brings about want, scarcity, and loss" (1940 179-183). Klibansky, Panofsky, and Saxl (1964) offer a great wealth of mythological, medical, and astrological lore about Saturn, with particular emphasis on the theory of the humors and the concept of melancholy; for weather, flood, crops, see pp. 134-139. For the positive side of Saturn's influence, see below, note 61.

21. See Klibansky, Panofsky, and Saxl 1964 52-58 (Aristotle and Galen), 332-337 (Ramon Llull); and Nardi 1966b 258-263. See below, Chapter 5, pp. 181-182, for a discussion of hereos, the sickness of love, in "Così nel mio parlar."

22. See the famous Aristotelian Problem 30.1, in Klibansky, Panofsky, and Saxl 1964 17-42 (text and translation, 18-29), esp. 21-22: "It is for this reason [i.e., that it contains air] that wine excites sexual desire, and Dionysus and Aphrodite are rightly said to belong together, and most melancholic persons are lustful. For the sexual act is connected with the generation of air, as is shown by the fact that the virile organ quickly increases from a small size by inflation . . . . Also the effusion and impetus of the semen in sexual intercourse is clearly due to impulsion by air . . . . That melancholy persons contain air is obvious in some cases; for most melancholy persons have firm flesh and their veins stand out, the reason being the abundance not of blood but of air." break

23. Courcelle 1967 has a rich set of illustrations.

24. Compare Purgatorio 2.1-6:

Già era 'l sole a l'orizzonte giunto 
   lo cui meridïan cerchio coverchia 
   Ierusalèm col suo più alto punto; 
e la notte, che opposita a lui cerchia, 
   uscia di Gange fuor con le Bilance, 
   che le caggion de man quando soverchia . . .

25. Astronomica 2.929, cited in Klibansky, Panofsky, and Saxl 1964 141n.40.

26. Saturnalia 1.2.9. In connection with "Io son venuto" 's beginning at sunset, it is interesting that the first topic discussed at the banquet related in the Saturnalia concerns whether the day begins at sunset or at midnight (1.2.19-21).

27. See Introduction, note 8.

28. If Dante followed the ecclesiastical calendar, which reckoned transition between signs to take place on the twenty-first of the month (as we do today), we could limit the field to the period between May 21 and 31 (he clearly used the ecclesiastical date for Easter in the Commedia—see Boyde 1981 163-165). Palgen suggests that Dante may have invented his Gemini nativity as befitting his poetic gifts: "Whether Dante was really born a Gemini is a question I would like to set aside: possibly he simply invented the fitting horoscope for someone with his fate and his inclination for theological and philosophical speculation. Caution in drawing biographical conclusions is surely advisable here" (1940 69). Palgen was apparently unaware of the evidence for Dante's having cast the actual horoscopes of December 1296 and May 1265. The evidence for Dante's having studied such horoscopes is, we believe, conclusive—for his having studied them, not for their biographical accuracy.

29. Pecoraro (1987 345-347) arbitrarily interprets the passage from Boccaccio to refer to June 1, in this, as in many other positions—e.g., how Dante would have calculated longitudes, Mars as the "bel pianeta che d'amar conforta," Sinai as the antipodes of the Earthly Paradise—attributing an illusory exactitude to very general or vague expressions, ones that are often, in Dante's case, deliberately evasive. See below, notes 30, 63, 65, and Chapter 6, notes 17 and 20.

30. Boffitto and Melzi d'Eril 1908. We do not know exactly when this almanac became available, presumably it was prepared late in the thirteenth century. Boffitto and Melzi demonstrated that its particular format for the positions of Venus made it easy to mistake the 1301 position for that of 1300; they thus provided the most natural explanation for Dante's having Venus as a morning star in Pisces in Purgatorio 1—

Lo bel pianeta che d'amar conforta 
   faceva tutto rider l'orïente, 
   velando i Pesci ch'erano in sua scorta 
           (1.19-21)

      —a passage that echoes "Io son venuto," line 6. In April 1300, Venus was in fact an evening star in Taurus. (In passing, it may be observed that only Venus and continue

      Jupiter are ever bright enough to justify such expressions; Mars could never do so.) Dante would probably have had to use an almanac to cast his natal horoscope, and he could have made such a mistake either with Prophatius's tables, if they were available in 1296-97, or with another's.

      In order to cast a horoscope from Prophatius's almanac, Dante would have had to calculate the positions of the planets from the tables and then correct their position to take into account the difference in longitude and latitude between Florence (or whatever place he was taking as location) and Montpellier, for whose longitude Prophatius had established the tables. Now Dante supposed Gibraltar to be 90 degrees west of Jerusalem (the correct difference in longitude is 40.83 degrees). It would seem reasonable to assume, then, that Dante supposed longitudinal differences to be a little more than twice their actual size. If so, he would have supposed Florence to be about 15 degrees (or one hour) east of Montpellier (the correct figure is 7.22 degrees); Jerusalem would be about 65 degrees east of Montpellier, more than four hours (the correct figure is 31.30 degrees, a little over two hours). Latitudes, in contrast, were accurately known and could be ascertained with an astrolabe. If Dante calculated horoscopes on the basis of Prophatius's almanac (and leaving out of consideration inaccuracies inherent in the almanac itself and the possibility of mistakes like the one he made for Venus), and if he made longitudinal corrections such as we have indicated, the error introduced would have been negligible except in the case of the moon, which moves approximately 1 degree per hour, and the ascendant. This last is a major point, of course, on which depends the calculation of houses, for which, furthermore, there were several methods. Some aspects of Dante's astrological practice, as we may call it, are impossible to know; we have omitted any inferences depending on the moon or the ascendant.

31. Mercury is important to all horoscopes of this time period because during the entire two weeks, it was in Gemini (its night house), where its influence was thought to be particularly strong. During most of the period (from May 21 on), Mercury was in the subdivision of his house where his influence was even more intensified—its so-called terms ( fines ), the first six degrees of the sign. For Mercury as the possible "lord" of this horoscope, see above, pp. 87-91. During the same two weeks, Saturn also was within Mercury's "terms" in Gemini and within the orb of conjunction with Mercury (in exact conjunction on May 31 at 63.5 degrees). What Dante would have made of the fact that Mercury was retrograde during most of the period, we cannot know.

      As for the positions of Mars and Venus, they, too, throughout most of the two-week period, were very close together. On May 16 they were about 18 degrees apart, but with Mars retrograde they entered the orb of conjunction, in Cancer, on May 18. Since Mars moves very slowly along the ecliptic, and since Venus was retrograde between May 25 and June 5, for the rest of May Mars and Venus were never more than 10 degrees apart.

      Jupiter was moving slowly through the last degrees of Taurus in May, gradually decreasing the distance between himself and Mercury and Saturn. On June 8, the extremely rare conjunction (orbal) of the three planets took place.

32. It is in Paradiso 22, of course, that Dante explicitly refers to his birth and continue

      pays his tribute to the stars of Gemini. But the terms in which Dante relates his departure from Gemini are particularly appropriate to birth: "del bel nido di Leda mi divelse " ( Paradiso 27.98), and the reference to Leda's nest, which involves a reference to Leda's womb (the first nest of Castor and Pollux), inclines us to the view that the time spent by Dante in Gemini is to be taken as parallel to the time he spent in the womb (see below, note 64). In Paradiso 16.34-39, Dante has Cacciaguida date his birth by reference to Mars in Leo (as it is at the time of Dante's journey). If May 27 was Dante's birthday, the reference would gain additional motivation from the fact that in 1265 Mars entered Leo on May 26. Finally, the planetary positions for May 27 are more interesting than those for May 22; this is an arbitrary element, of course, but Dante may well have indulged in such arbitrary (but motivated) guesswork.

33. Saturn was in Gemini, during Dante's lifetime, as follows: (1) 1265-67. Saturn entered Gemini at the beginning of May 1265, in direct motion; around September 18 of that year it turned retrograde at 12 degrees Gemini, remaining retrograde until about January 6, 1266; on October 3, 1266, its motion became retrograde again, at 26 degrees Gemini, and remained so until about February 10, 1267, at 19.5 degrees Gemini; on June 14, 1267, Saturn entered Cancer. (2) 1294-97. Saturn entered Gemini in direct motion on June 19, 1294; on about September 6 it turned retrograde at 6 degrees Gemini, moving backward into Taurus on December 15; on January 24, 1295, it reached 28 degrees Taurus, and its motion became direct again. Saturn reentered Gemini on February 26, 1295; about September 21 it turned retrograde at 20 degrees Gemini, remaining retrograde until about February 18, 1296, turning at 13 degrees Gemini. Saturn left Gemini on August 1, 1296, and reached 4 degrees Cancer around October 5, where it once again turned retrograde. On December 24, 1296 (the date of the conjunction of Venus and the sun), Saturn entered Gemini retrograde, turning to direct motion only on February 22, 1297, at 27 degrees Gemini. On April 14, 1297, Saturn left Gemini, not to return until April 1324.

      If Dante speculated on the future returns of Saturn to Gemini, he would have had to suppose that the one in 1324-26, if he lived to see it, would be the last of his lifetime; his life thus would have been punctuated by three such returns (1265-67, 1294-97, 1324-26), at approximately thirty-year intervals. In September 1321, when Dante died, Saturn was in Aries.

      For the question of Dante's expectation of the "great conjunction" of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars in Gemini in 1325, see Woody 1977.

34. Dante no doubt considered either Saturn or Mercury to be the "lord" of his horoscope. Mercury is the more likely (see pp. 87-91). Although he does not say so explicitly, Boccaccio's description of Dante in the two versions of the Trattatello in laude di Dante is recognizably Saturnine:

Fu adunque questo nostro poeta di mediocre statura, e, poi che alla matura età fu pervenuto, andò alquanto curvetto, e era il suo andare grave e mansueto, d'onestissimi panni sempre vestito, in quello abito che era alla sua maturità convenevole. II suo volto fu lungo, e il naso aquilino, e gli occhi anzi grossi che piccioli, le mascelle grandi, e dal labro di sotto era continue

quel di sopra avanzato; e il colore era bruno, e i cappelli e la barba spessa, neri e crespi, e sempre nella faccia malinconicoe pensoso.
(Boccaccio 1974 465, cf. 512)

      Parts of Boccaccio's description might almost have been lifted from Ptolemy's description of the Saturnine:

Saturn, if he is in the orient, makes his subjects in appearance dark-skinned, robust, black-haired, curly-haired, hairy-chested, with eyes of moderate size, of middling stature, and in temperament having an excess of the moist and the cold.
(1940 309)

      That Boccaccio was thoroughly aware of the astrology of the petrose is proved by his use of it in the Decameron and elsewhere; see Durling 1985; cf. Quaglio 1967, an excellent survey of astrology in Boccaccio. For Boccaccio on Saturn, see Boccaccio 1951 Book 8, proem and chapter 1.

35. The horoscope for June 4, given as an example in Durling 1975 126, shows an even closer grouping.

36. How seriously a horoscope like this could be taken is seen in the attitudes of the Avignon cleric Opicinus de Canistris, who was born precisely on December 24, 1296. He thought that the reason his whole life was dogged by strife, misfortune, and inner conflict—as indeed it seems to have been—was the double influence of Saturn and Mars in his natal chart. Also, thanks to a common medieval confusion between ante and antí, he thought his nativity had a connection with the anti-Christ that was pernicious to himself. The fanatical exactitude of Opicinus's elaborate drawings, in which he tried to relate his own situation with the rest of the cosmos, including the geography of Europe, is most instructive. Of course, Opicinus was a crank—but so to some extent was Dante. See Salomon 1936 : 122-129. Volume 2 of this remarkable study consists of reproductions of Opicinus's drawings; see esp. vol. 2, Tafel 22.

37. Exactly what the significance of Mars retrograde would have been thought to be in this planetary configuration, it is difficult to say; Opicinus (see previous note) clearly regarded it as particularly baleful and associated it with his frequent defeats (cf. Palgen 1940 47-50).

38. It is hardly necessary to point out that the term passo is the vernacular correlate of the Latin gradus, or step.

39. The emphasis in "Io son venuto" on Saturn ascending might indicate that he thought of Saturn as the most dominant. See below, note 51.

40. The grounds would have included the near conjunction of the sun and Mercury in Gemini.

41. Firmicus Maternus 2.2-3; cf. Ptolemy Tetrabiblos 1.17.

42. Ptolemy Tetrabiblos 4.4: "For anthropomorphic signs are of some assistance to all scientific pursuits or those useful to man" (1940 389).

43. Ibid.: "For if Mercury governs action, to speak generally, he makes his subjects scribes, men of business, calculators, teachers, merchants, bankers, soothsayers, astrologers, sacrificers, and in general those who perform their continue

      functions by means of documents, interpretation, and giving and taking" (Ptolemy 1940 383). Firmicus Maternus 3.1: "Mercurius in parte horoscopi partiliter constitutus in his, in quibus gaudet signis, in diurna genitura facit philosophos, grammaticae artis magistros aut geometras aut caelestia saepe tractantes aut qui ad hoc spectent, ut deorum possint praesentiam intueri, aut sacrarum litterarum peritos; facit etiam frequenter oratores et advocatos, praesertim si in hoc loco vel in suis signis vel in ceteris vocalibus signis fuerit inventus. Quod si sic Mercurium Sol aut Saturnus aut Iuppiter in diurna genitura respexerit, magnos viros faciet, qui sacris et gloriosis stemmatibus coronentur; facit etiam tales, ut illis maxima imperatorum negotia credantur" (1913 155-156); cf. 5.2.15, 7.26.

42. Ptolemy Tetrabiblos 4.4: "For anthropomorphic signs are of some assistance to all scientific pursuits or those useful to man" (1940 389).

43. Ibid.: "For if Mercury governs action, to speak generally, he makes his subjects scribes, men of business, calculators, teachers, merchants, bankers, soothsayers, astrologers, sacrificers, and in general those who perform their continue

      functions by means of documents, interpretation, and giving and taking" (Ptolemy 1940 383). Firmicus Maternus 3.1: "Mercurius in parte horoscopi partiliter constitutus in his, in quibus gaudet signis, in diurna genitura facit philosophos, grammaticae artis magistros aut geometras aut caelestia saepe tractantes aut qui ad hoc spectent, ut deorum possint praesentiam intueri, aut sacrarum litterarum peritos; facit etiam frequenter oratores et advocatos, praesertim si in hoc loco vel in suis signis vel in ceteris vocalibus signis fuerit inventus. Quod si sic Mercurium Sol aut Saturnus aut Iuppiter in diurna genitura respexerit, magnos viros faciet, qui sacris et gloriosis stemmatibus coronentur; facit etiam tales, ut illis maxima imperatorum negotia credantur" (1913 155-156); cf. 5.2.15, 7.26.

44. See Boll and Gundel 1931; Gundel 1972 620-633.

45. Ovid's account of their becoming stars is in the Fasti:

At mihi pande, precor, tanto meliora petenti, 
   in Geminos ex quo tempore Phoebus eat. 
"cum totidem de mense dies superesse videbis, 
   quot sunt Herculei facta laboris" ait. 
"dic" ego respondi "causam mihi sideris huius"; 
   causam facundo reddidit ore deus: 
"abstulerant raptas Phoeben Phoebesque sororem 
   Tyndaridae fratres, hic eques, ille pugil. 
bella parant repetuntque suas et frater et Idas, 
   Leucippo fieri pactus uterque gener. 
his amor, ut repetant, illis, ut reddere nolint, 
   suadet et ex causa pugnat uterque pari. 
effugere Oebalidae cursu potuere sequentes, 
   sed visum celeri vincere turpe fuga. 
liber ad arboribus locus est, apta area pugnae: 
   constiterant illo—nomen Aphidna—loco. 
pectora traiectus Lynceo Castor ab ense 
   non exspectato vulnere pressit humum. 
ultor adest Pollux et Lyncea perforat hasta, 
   qua cervix umeros continuata premit. 
ibat in hunc Idas vixque est Iovis igne repulsus, 
   tela tamen dextrae fulmine rapta negant. 
iamque tibi, Pollux, caelum sublime patebat, 
   cum 'mea' dixisti 'percipe verba, pater! 
quod mihi das uni caelum, partire duobus: 
   dimidium toto munere maius erit.' 
dixit et altera fratrem statione redemit: 
   utile sollicitae sidus utrumque rati." 
          ( Fasti  5.693-720 D. XIII. KAL. IUN. C. [i.e., May 18] [Ovid 1957])

      But open to me, I beg, as I seek things so much greater, when the sun enters Gemini. "When you see that as many days remain in the month as Hercules performed labors," he says. "Tell," I reply, "the reason for this constellation"; the god replies with eloquent mouth: "The two sons of Leda, one a horseman, the other a boxer, had carried off Phoebe and continue

Phoebe's sister. Idas and his brother take up arms and demand their sisters, both having promised to become brothers-in-law to Leucippus. Love urges them to demand them back, love urges these others to keep the sisters, and each fights with equal reason. The grandsons of Oebalus could have escaped by fleeing, but it seemed base to win by cowardly flight. There was a clearing, an apt place for a fight: they halted there—Aphidna is the name of the place. Castor, run through the breast by an unexpected wound from Lynceus' sword, fell to the ground. Pollux is quick to avenge him and pierces Lynceus through with his spear where the neck joins the shoulders. Idas attacks Pollux, even the fire of Jove hardly repels him, and they say that the lightning did not shake his weapon from his right hand. Already the high heavens were opening to you, Pollux, when you said, 'Hear my words, father! The heaven that you are giving to me alone—divide it between the two of us: half a gift will be greater than a whole one.' He spoke, and redeemed his brother with alternate stay: and both stars are helpful to a ship in trouble."

      In Ovid's account the myth is deeply ambiguous, then, capable of being read in a severely negative sense as well as in its more frequently cited sense as an instance of brotherly devotion. The allegorical interpretation given by the Christian Fulgentius (probably fourth century), for instance, treats the brothers as personifying the consequences of the libidinous abuse of power (i.e., Jupiter's):

Sed ex hoc ovo generantur tres, Castor, Pollux, et Helena, nihilominus seminarium scandali et discordiae, sicut ante diximus, "et geminum luctu concussit adultera mundum." Castorem vero et Pollucem quasi in modum perditionis ponunt, unde et in mari Castorum signa dixerunt quae periculum creant; nam ob hanc rem etiam ambos alternatim resurgere atque occidere dicunt, quod superbia nonnumquam iubet, nonnumquam occidat.
( Mythologiarum 2.13)

But from this egg three are born, Castor, Pollux, and Helen, nothing less than a sowing of scandal and discord, as we have said, "And the adulteress shook both Asia and Europe (the twinned world) with grief." They see Castor and Pollux as signifying destruction, and at sea they say that the constellation that brings danger is Castor's; for this reason, too, they are said to rise and die alternately, for pride sometimes commands, sometimes kills.

      See below, note 47.

46. See Real-Encyclopädie (Pauly-Wissowa), s.v. Dioskuroi; Aen. 6.121; Ovid Amores 3.2.54; Hyginus Fab. 77, 78; Horace Sat. 1.1.27; Cicero De nat. deor. 2.2.

47. Hyginus's account, in his astronomical handbook, makes a point of their not striving for principatus:

Gemini. Hos complures astrologi Castorem et Pollucem esse dixerunt, quos demonstrant omnium fratrum inter se amantissimos fuisse, quod neque de principatu contenderint, neque ullam rem sine communi con- soft

silio gesserint. Pro quibus officiis eorum Iuppiter inter notissima sidera eos constituisse existimatur. Neptunum autem pari consilio munerasse, nam equos his quibus utuntur donavit et dedit potestatem naufragiis saluti esse. Alii dixerunt Herculem esse et Apollinem; nonnulli etiam Triptolemum quem supra diximus et Iasiona a Cerere dilectos et ad sidera perlatos. Sed qui de Castore et Polluce dicunt, hoc amplius addunt ut Castor in oppido Aphidnis sit occisus, quo tempore Lacedaemones cum Atheniensibus bellum gesserunt. Alii autem, cum oppugnarent Spartam Lynceus et Idas, ibi perisse dixerunt. Pollucem ait Homerus concessisse fratri dimidiam vitam, itaque alternis diebus eorum quemque lucere.
(Hyginus 1983 63-65)

      See also Alain of Lille's reference ( Anticlaudianus 4.6.8--9; PL 210.526): "Hic proles Ledaea micat, nec pignus amoris / Quem prius in terris gessit deponit in astris."

48. See below, note 62. Rabuse (1957) discusses the children of Mars on pp. 88-92, of Saturn on pp. 284-285, but he does not connect them with the problematic of the Twins or of the frères ennemis. That the Twins were sometimes associated with the frères ennemis can be seen in certain medieval representations; for instance, Herrad of Landsberg, in the Hortus deliciarum, shows them as jousting knights (1979 fol. IIV; and cf. fol. 215). The Twins have also been associated with Virgil's mysterious phrase about the Veltro, "e sua nazion sarà tra feltro e feltro" ( Inferno 1.105). Leonardo Olschki (1953) argued that it refers to the traditional felt caps of Castor and Pollux, thus to Dante's own birth. The late Robert E. Kaske showed (1961 237-240) that a considerable number of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century texts associate Castor and Pollux with St. Francis and St. Dominic and their respective orders; he found a number of details in Paradiso 11-12 which draw upon the association and argued that "tra feltro e feltro" refers to the coarse habits of the two mendicant orders. See our pp. 236-240.

      There does not appear to be any reference in the petrose to the traditional role of the Dioscuri as helpers of storm-beset sailors or to their association with St. Elmo's fire.

49. For a useful account of Martianus's allegory and its influence, see Wetherbee 1972 83-92. On Bernard Silvester, see below, notes 85 and 88. On Martianus's doctrines and for bibliography, see Gersh 1986 2:597-646.

50. For instance, Mercury consults his mother, Maia, about his marriage—and naturally he visits her on his zodiacal rounds, since she is one of the Pleiades: "in quam sententiam mater illum anxia, cum annua peragratione zodiaca in Pliadum numero salutaret, impulerat" ( De nuptiis 1.5 [Willis 1983 3]). In other words, Martianus's references to Mercury (and Apollo) fluctuate between mythological and astrological: he is alternately planet and god. A very high proportion of Eriugena's glosses on the first book are explanations of the cosmological—mainly astronomical—allegories; see Lutz 1939 8, 14, 15, 19-26, 29-30, 34-45.

51. It would be the ideal horoscope for a philosophical poet, as Dante must have seen: when Apollo agrees to help Mercury persuade Jupiter to allow his continue

      marriage with Philologia, the two gods, "metamorphosed" into their astronomical identities, suddenly pass from a grove on Parnassus (symbolizing the cosmos) to the heavens:

interea tractus aerios iam Phoebus exierat, cum subito ei vitta crinalis immutatur in radios, laurusque, quam dextera retinebat, in lampadem mundani splendoris accenditur, fiuntque volucres, qui currum Delium subvehebant, anheli flammantis lucis alipedes. atque idem pallio rutilante ac reserato stellantis poli limine Sol repente clarius emicuit. Cyllenius quoque in sidus vibrabile astrumque convertitur. atque ita metamorphosi supera pulchriores per Geminos propinquitate quadam signi familiaris invecti augusto fulsere caelo, ac mox Tonantis palatium petiverunt.
( De nuptiis 1.29-30 [Willis 1983 15])

In the meantime Phoebus had gone out into the tracts of the air, and suddenly the fillet binding his hair changed into sunbeams, and the laurel that he was carrying in his right hand was lit up as the lamp that lights the world, the birds that were drawing the Delian chariot suddenly became fire-breathing horses with winged feet. And he, in a flaming cloak, opening the threshold of the starry pole, suddenly shone forth as the Sun. Cyllenius, too, is changed into a planet and shining star. And thus, by a heavenly metamorphosis more beautiful, carried through Gemini by a certain nearness of the familiar sign, they shone forth on the high heaven, and now made for the palace of the Thunderer.

52. Cambridge University Library, Ms. Mm 1.18, fols. 1-29r; published in part by Wetherbee 1972 267-272; on it, see his pp. 115-125. The commentary as a whole has now been published by Westra (1986).

53. "Tractaturus namque philosophus de coniunctione sermonis et rationis incipit de causa coniunctionis, scilicet concordia utili, qui naturas licet dissonas in unam sociat essentiam" (Wetherbee 1972 271; Westra 1986 49). See the fine discussion of the opening poem in Le Moine 1972 21-29. A basic theme of Bernard's commentary is the duality of human nature between soul and body or spirit and sensuality. This is parallel, he says, to the relation (of marriage) between Adam and Eve (Westra 1986 143-144, and cf. pp. 44, 48), who are thus brought into parallel with the Twins. This node of association (Mercury-Philologia, Castor-Pollux, Adam-Eve) may perhaps have been a factor in the growing popularity of the male-female version of the Twins; see below, note 55.

54. This is a comment on the astrological passage quoted above ( De nuptiis 1.30):

Vita contemplativa Pollux, i.e. "perditio" dicitur quia bona hec relinquendo animam suam perdit ut eam invenire mereatur. Activa vita "extremum malum" dicitur quia terminus corporee voluptatis esse perhibetur. Inter voluptatem namque et contemplationem media est actio. Ille immortalis esse ex hoc monstratur, quia morte corporali non ita contemplatio ut actio terminatur. Unde Dominus dicit Mariam eam elegisse, propterea quod ab ea non auferetur. Castori Pollux confert deitatem quia actio ad contemplationem transiens assequitur immortalitatem.
(Wetherbee 1972 268; Westra 1986 240) continue

55. The traditions available to Dante included other identifications of the heavenly Twins besides the predominant one as Castor and Pollux. The most important represent them visually as male and female. These appear in a very few ancient representations of the zodiac, apparently restricted to Egypt and unknown in the Christian West; see H. G. Gundel 1972 600-695 ("Bildliche Darstellungen"); Neugebauer and Parker 1969 72-75, no. 54, pl. 35; Stern 1953 199-202. In the Middle Ages, representation of the Twins as a male and female pair becomes increasingly common, particularly from the thirteenth century on; by the fifteenth century a large majority of representations of the Twins in calendars (in Books of Hours, etc.) are of a male-female pair. They occur in cathedral sculptures, as on the west portal at Amiens, and in a wide variety of types of manuscripts, from astronomical-astrological ones to the Liber Scivias of Hildegard of Bingen to Psalters and Books of Hours. See Boll 1903 235-236, with n. 1; Haseloff 1897 10-24, 63; Bober 1948; Saxl 1915-53 1:25; 2:104, 132, 150, and Abb. 6, 10, 11, 12; and 3:73 and Abb. 230; Domínguez-Rodríguez 1973 43; and Moralejo-Alvárez 1977 169 (which has a useful discussion of Christian allegories of the zodiac and their reflections in art but erroneously states that the St. Gallen version of Hildebertus's De ratione xii. signorum identifies the Twins as Adam and Eve—see Bettmann 1847 593-594). For the Christian allegoresis of the zodiac, see Hübner 1975; Daniélou 1961 131-142.

      Another tradition represents the Twins as both female; apparently it originates at the court of Alfonso X the Wise of Spain (see Brey-Mariño et al. 1982; and Domínguez-Rodríguez 1979). Finally, there is a tradition that represents them as a single bicephalous (dividing either at the neck or at the waist) human figure, apparently of Byzantine origin (e.g., in Paris B.N. Ms. lat. 7330, fol. 11, or Ms. grec 2419, fol. 1).

      If the Twins are represented as male and female, who are they? In medieval terms, several main possibilities suggest themselves: most probably the Twins represent Adam and Eve, the original couple and in a sense the product of the same "birth," or else the masculine and feminine sides of human nature. Origen, in his first homily on Genesis, states: "Interior homo ex spiritu et anima constat. Masculus spiritus dicitur, femina potest anima nuncupari" (Origène 1976 66, trans. Rufinus); the idea became a commonplace. These two possibilities are not mutually exclusive, of course, and, according to the later Greek fathers, the division of the sexes itself was anticipatory of the Fall; the resurrected Christ was thought to be androgynous (see Chapter 1, note 31). This aspect of the tradition has a clear analogy with the traditional interpretation of Castor and Pollux as the mortal and immortal sides of man. It seems possible that Martianus Capella's association of the marriage of Mercury and Philologia with the sign Gemini could have contributed to the growing popularity of the male-female Twins, particularly in the wake of Bernard Silvester's commentary; cf. also Chapter 1, note 30, and Bernard Silvester's twin genii, p. 98 and note 88 below.

56. Alfragano 1910 139-141. Durling 1975 116 erroneously takes the reference to Capella as a reference to Castor. On the stars Castor and Pollux, see Ptolemy Tetrabiblos 1.9 (1940 49). break

57. Martianus Capella 8.848 (Willis 1983 321). This is still true: the earth is farthest from the sun, and therefore moving slowest, at aphelion, then known as the sun's apogee, when the sun is at about the eighth degree of the constellation (not the sign) Gemini (i.e., around July 8).

58. "Inde fere numquam in eodem signo bis continuo nascitur nisi in Geminis, ubi hoc non numquam evenit, quia dies in eo sol duos supra triginta altitudine signi morante consumit; rarissime in aliis si circa primam signi partem a sole procedat" (Macrobius 1970a 27); cf. Martianus Capella 8.865-866 (Willis 1983 327-328). On Calcidius, see above, note 9.

59. Manilius 1932 2.197-202; see Housman's notes there and on p. vii. In his edition of Lucan, Housman (1926 333) points out that Gemini and Cancer are the two constellations that extend highest in the sky at transit.

60. Macrobius erroneously claims that the Milky Way crosses the ecliptic at the two Tropics ( Commentarii 1.12.1)—he is following Porphyry's Cave of the Nymphs; see Macrobius 1952 133n. 1: the error is obvious and was recognized in the Middle Ages. This symmetry is significant in his doctrine of the descent of the soul to the earth, in which again he follows Porphyry. He says that the gate by which the soul descends is at the summer solstice, that by which it returns to heaven at the winter solstice. Dante nowhere explicitly associates Gemini with the celestial gates, but there is a strong connection between the Commedia and the entire passage in Macrobius, not only because it is from Gemini that Dante leaves the visible universe in Paradiso 27, but also because in his journey heavenward Dante roughly retraces the path Macrobius implies for the soul's return to the stars, with the curious coincidence of the penultimate step via Leo, beneath which Dante visits Saturn: contiguous to Leo is the constellation Crater, the soul's first downward step according to Macrobius: see Commentarii 1.12.8.

61. Although Saturn's influence was usually considered to be negative, it was not forgotten that when he ruled Italy the world was innocent; the Golden Age is heralded by Virgil as Saturnia regna (Fourth Eclogue; cf. Plato Laws 713-714). From Ptolemy on, the tradition claimed him as a chief influence in forming the philosophical cast of mind, especially when associated with the beneficent planets and "in honorable positions" (Ptolemy 1940 339-347):

[as chief ruler Saturn] makes his subjects . . . strongminded, deep thinkers, austere, of a single purpose . . . [allied with Jupiter] wise, patient, philosophical . . . [allied with Venus] prophetic . . . , mystics, religious addicts, but dignified and reverent, modest, philosophical . . . [allied with Mercury] inquirers into . . . law and custom, fond of the art of medicine, mystics, partakers in concealed and secret rites.

      Plotinus identified the power of Saturn with that of noûs, the cosmic principle of intellect (Klibansky, Panofsky, and Saxl 1964 152-156). According to Macrobius's account of the descent of the soul through heavenly spheres, Saturn endows it with the "motions" of ratiocination and intelligence, "ratiocinationem et intelligentiam, quas logistikón et theoretikón vocant," Mercury with the power of speech and interpretation ( Commentarii 1.13). In such contexts Saturn's coldness and slowness are positively valued. The Christian tradition continue

      eclectically adapted the positive side of the figure of Saturn to its own themes, identifying the new Golden Age with monastic peace and contemplation (Klibansky, Panofsky, and Saxl 1964 159-169). When in the Paradiso Dante makes Saturn the abode of the contemplatives, his text becomes a kind of compendium of these traditions; see Palgen 1940 63-67. The central theme of Klibansky, Panofsky, and Saxl's great Saturn and Melancholy is the interweaving of traditions that leads to the association of the melancholic (Saturnine) temperament with artistic genius.

62. In the Commedia, Hell and Paradise are conceived as the realms of those who were dominated by the negative power of their stars (Hell) versus those whose "battles with the heavens" ( Purgatorio 16.77) resulted in an ability to follow the positive side of the planet's power. The fullest discussion of this aspect of the Commedia so far is in Rabuse 1957. Rabuse was unaware of the presence of the body analogy in the Commedia and was led astray by his determination to see in the Commedia a detailed imitation of Macrobius's account of the descent of the soul into matter and its re-ascent out of it. His book is nonetheless indispensable, particularly in its ground-breaking treatment of the relation between the infernal realm of Mars and the cantos of Mars in the Paradiso —on which see also Schnapp 1987, a more balanced discussion, though it underestimates the importance of the astrological dimension.

63. The horoscopes discussed in this chapter may well have a significant relation with those of the Commedia. See Figure 5 (p. 90), which shows the position of the planets for an hour after sunrise, Friday, April 8, 1300 (the morning generally accepted as meant in Inferno I). The positions are those for Montpellier calculated from Prophatius by Boffitto and Melzi (1908 129-130); we have disregarded the difference in longitude between Montpellier and Jerusalem, since we cannot know Dante would have calculated it (see above, note 30). Comparison of this horoscope of Inferno 1 with Figures 2, 3, and 4 reveals that all have one important point in common: the close grouping of Mercury, Jupiter, and the sun (Jupiter's greatest distance is 10 degrees in 1265, in 1296 it is 3 degrees, and in 1300, 5 degrees). Again, we emphasize that this configuration changed relatively slowly. We have indicated the position of Venus for April 8, 1301 (her actual position in 1300 was in Taurus). (According to Prophatius—and in fact—the full moon occurred on April 6; the reference in Inferno 20.127 to the moon as having been full "last evening" is thus anomalous. The anomaly is sometimes resolved by appeal to the ecclesiastical calendar, in which the paschal full moon is identified as occurring on April 7 [Moore 1903 177]. We show the moon in the position given by Prophatius.)

64. This is similar to the length of time Adam says he spent in the Garden of Eden ( Paradiso 26.139-142) and seems to us to provide additional support for the notion that Dante's time in Gemini is parallel to his life in the womb; see above, note 32.

65. In Dante's time, as he knew, the zodiacal constellations no longer corresponded exactly to the astrological signs; the vernal equinox (the first point of the sign Aries) had already precessed about 18 degrees (more than half a sign) continue

      into the constellation Pisces. Although Dante may seem to be referring to the constellation Gemini ( stelle, lume ), it seems clear that he is disregarding the distinction, as he did in Purgatorio I (see Boyde 1981 163-165). We could not conclude, for instance, that he must have been born when the sun was actually in the constellation Gemini (i.e., from 20 degrees of the sign Gemini on—after June 6) because of the good grounds we have for believing that he was born in May. Intentionally or not, Dante would seem to have concealed any really definite clue to his birthdate. Of course, it is possible that he was actually born when the sun was in the zodiacal sign Cancer but with the stars of Gemini, and that he decided to claim Gemini as his sign because of its appropriateness to a philosopher-poet; but again, there is really no reason not to accept Boccaccio's report (see Introduction, note 8).

66. E.g., Singleton, in Dante 1975 2:365: Dante's apostrophe to these stars "constitutes the most eloquent witness to the belief in the influence of the heavenly bodies to be found anywhere in the poem. That these bodies do have such influence is granted in Purgatorio 16.73-81; but that the poet would grant, in his prayer here, that these glorious stars gave him . . .  all, whatever it may be . . , of his genius was perhaps hardly expected by the reader." For the early commentators' remarks on these lines, see Costa 1988 50-52; Costa gives a useful survey of much of the lore of Mercury known to Dante (pp. 43-64).

67. The complexities of the doctrine of the human intellect do not seem to have left much trace in the petrose, which precede the most intense period of Dante's encounter with Avicennism and Averroism; see Nardi 1960 1-68; and Nardi 1949 175-200. In this connection, one of the points in Nardi's analysis on which we are not satisfied is his interpretation of Convivio 4.21.3-8. The passage is quite susceptible to a Proclan or Avicennan interpretation, namely, that it is the mover of the sphere (possibly of the dominant planet or of the fixed stars) that produces the possible intellect (this would be reconcilable with the Dominican position, which Dante seems clearly to adopt, that the active intellect is directly created). This view receives support in Dante's insistence that the first part of his explanation of the origin of human nobility will be natural, the second theological, and that the first part never unmistakably refers to God but both cites the Liber de causis (citations omitted in Nardi's discussion) and uses the terms motore and prima intelligentia, which in the Proclan tradition refer to levels of emanation below the One. Nardi nowhere discusses the question of Dante's knowledge of Proclus's Elementatio theologiae, which William of Moerbecke had translated, which Aquinas identified as the source of the Liber de causis and constantly cites in his commentary, and which seems to have circulated in Dominican circles, though not outside them (see Kaiser 1963). In short, it is possible that in Paradiso 22 Dante is ascribing the production of his possible intellect to the stars of Gemini. Even more clearly emanationist passages, such as those in Paradiso 1, 2, 13, and 27, however, are ambiguous on some key points (e.g., in Paradiso 2, just how close is the analogy between the way life is "bound up" with the body in human beings and the relation between the heavenly movers and their spheres?); see below, note 75. In any case, the question is beyond continue

      our scope in this book (as well as our capacity!) and not central to our argument, which is that the petrose rest on an analogy between heavenly and human art that anticipates the Commedia in a general way but not in such details.

68. We incline to the view, then, that Dante would have subscribed to the views of Albertus Magnus's follower Witelo, though the term pregno does not establish it. In Paradiso 2 (see below), Beatrice says that the angelic mind "makes itself the seal," i.e., imposes the form—this language does not see the Movers as producing motus ad formam. Albert himself, of course, seems to have been inconsistent on many of these questions; cf. the previous note, and see Introduction, pp. 35-45.

69. Dante had read about the descent of the soul not only in the Timaeus but also in Macrobius's more widely read—and much more detailed—account in the Commentary on the Dream of Scipio. There the doctrine is that until they incline downward toward bodies, all souls dwell in the sphere of the fixed stars. Riconosco is one of several terms in Paradiso 22 that seem rather pointed echoes of Macrobius's account:

animarum originem manare de caelo inter recte philosophantes indubitatae constat esse sapientiae: et animae, dum corpore utitur, haec est perfecta sapientia ut, unde orta sit, de quo fonte venerit, recognoscat .
( Commentarii 1.12.2; italics added)

Among those who philosophize correctly, it is established that undoubted wisdom holds that the soul draws its origin from the heavens: and this is the full wisdom of the soul as long as it dwells in the body that it recognize whence it has arisen, from what source it has come.

      Just as in Purgatorio 25.61-66 he has Statius correct Averroës's reading of Aristotle on the separability of the intellect, so his allusion to Macrobius in Paradiso 22 is a correction of the doctrine of pre-existence and looks back to Paradiso 4; Statius's account (25.103-105) also refutes Aeneid 6.733, the Platonic-Stoic view that the body is the source of the perturbations of the soul (see Durling 1981a 81-82). This care to distinguish the true astrological doctrine from the pagan distortions is entirely in line with Aquinas's position; see Litt 1963 220-240.

      Associated with the theme of paternity, as it is here, riconosco is an especially interesting term, and the theme is integrally bound up with the myth of the Twins. While in the myth Zeus does the paternal recognizing—and what amounts to adopting—here Dante is filially acknowledging his debt: the two actions go together. The term is used again, very conspicuously, in Dante's final expression of thanks to Beatrice ( Paradiso 31.84), also in a sense filial.

70. One notes, in the related context of "Io son venuto," the drawing up of the waters of the abyss by the power of the stars, also expressed with the term tirare, also a reference to the poetics of the poem; see below, pp. 106-108, and Chapter 6, pp. 248-250.

71. See, most notably, Paradiso 2.61-148, 27.105-120.

72. It is emphasized in this sphere when Beatrice says to Dante, "vedi quanto mondo / sotto li piedi già esser ti fei" ( Paradiso 22.128-129), with clear continue

      allusion to Psalm 8:7: "constituisti eum super opera manuum tuarum, et omnia subiecisti sub pedibus eius."

73. The fixed stars are a higher cause than the planets (except for the sun); see the discussion in Paradiso 2 quoted below.

74. The principle here again is nature first and divine intervention second, as in the accounts of embryology in Convivio 4 (see above, note 67) and Purgatorio 25. Dante's version of the parallel between the creation of man in Genesis and the creation of the Church goes back to Origen's homily on Genesis 1 and to Augustine's use of the analogy in Confessions 13, as does the underlying astrological analogy; see next note.

75. The analogy between human art and the art of the turning heavens is explicit in Paradiso 2, in a passage closely related to Albertus Magnus's conception of the analogy, discussed in the Introduction (pp. 41-43):

Dentro dal ciel de la divina pace 
   si gira un corpo ne la cui virtute 
   l'esser di tutto suo contento giace. 
Lo ciel seguente, c'ha tante vedute, 
   quell' esser parte per diverse essenze, 
   da lui distratte e da lui contenute. 
Li altri giron per varie differenze 
   le distinzion che dentro da sé hanno 
   dispongono a lor fini e lor semenze. 
Questi  organi del mondo  così vanno, 
   come tu vedi omai, di grado in grado, 
   che di sù prendono e di sotto fanno. 
Riguarda bene omai sì com'io vado 
   per questo loco al vero che disiri, 
   sì che poi sappi sol tener lo guado. 
Lo moto e la virtù d'i santi giri, 
    come dal fabbro l'arte del martello, 
   da' beati motor convien che spiri; 
e'l ciel cui tanti lumi fanno bello, 
   de la mente profonda che lui volve 
   'prende l'image e fassene suggello. 
          ( Paradiso  2.112-132; emphasis added)

      Beatrice goes on to draw the analogy between the intelligences and the human soul animating its body (lines 133-148). Boyde (1981 371-372, 266-269) notes Aquinas's description of this position as heretical in Summa contra Gentiles 2.43 and De veritate, quaest. 5, art. 9; the doctrine that the intelligences are souls of the heavens and that the heavenly bodies are organs was number 102 among the theses included in the famous condemnation of 1277: "Quod anima celi est intelligentia et orbes celestes non sunt intrumenta intelligentiarum sed organa, sicut auris et oculus sunt organa virtutis sensitive" (Denifle and Chatelain 1889 549; see Introduction, note 87, and above, note 67). See Chapter 6, pp. 228-232.

      Although Beatrice does not spell out the analogy as fully or in quite the same way as Albert does, the terminology and the general conception are extremely continue

      close. Albert correlates three terms in each term of the analogy: the mover (the angel, or Intelligence) he correlates with the habit of art, the sphere with the operation of the hand, and the powers of the elements with "the operation of a tool that is moved by the hand and directed to the end conceived by the artisan." Albert is discussing the formation of stones, and the elements are terrestrial; Beatrice is establishing the priority of form, showing that the nature of the heavenly spheres itself derives from the Intelligences that move them, as a human body is both shaped and moved by the soul. Dante correlates the sphere with the hammer, which moves and stamps the subject matter (see Chapter 6, note 8).

      Dante's analogy derives from the type of interpretation of Genesis 1 given by Augustine in the Confessions, according to which, in God's new creation (the Church), the firmament is the Bible and the heavenly bodies are the apostles, saints, and clergy who illuminate—and thus shape—the laity (made parallel with the sublunar):

Ita, Domine, ita, oro te, oriatur . . . , oriatur de terra veritas et iustitia de coelo respiciat, et fiant in firmamento luminaria . . .  et erumpat temporanea lux nostra et de ista inferiori fruge actionis in delicias contemplationis verbum vitae superius obtinentes, appareamus sicut luminaria in mundo, cohaerentes firmamento Scripturae tuae. Ibi enim nobiscum disputas, ut dividamus inter intelligibilia et sensibilia, tamquam inter diem et noctem vel inter animas alias intelligibilibus, alias sensibilibus deditas, ut iam non tu solus in abdito diiudicationis tuae, sicut antequam fieret firmamentum, dividas inter lucem et tenebras: sed etiam spiritales tui, in eodem firmamento positi atque distincti, manifestata per orbem gratia tua, luceant super terram et dividant inter diem et noctem et significent tempora, quia vetera transierunt et ecce facta sunt nova.
(13.18 [Capello 1948 547-548]; italics are the editor's and identify biblical phrases Augustine has woven into his text)

Thus, Lord, thus, I pray you, . . . so let the truth rise from the earth and let justice look down from the heavens and let there be lights in the firmament . . .  and let our temporary light break forth from that lower sphere of activity into the joy of contemplation, obtaining the Word of Life from on high, and let us appear as lights to the world, clinging to the firmament of your Scripture. For there you remonstrate with us, so that we may distinguish between intelligible and sensible things as if between day and night or between souls given over to intelligible things and those given over to the things of sense, not as once you, alone in the secret of your decrees, before the firmament was made, divided the light from the darkness: but as also your spiritual ones, set and distinguished in the same firmament, your grace having been revealed throughout the world, shine upon the earth and divide the night from the day and signify time, because old things have passed away and behold all things have been made new.

      Cf. 13.15: "Aut quis nisi tu, Deus noster, fecisti nobis firmamentum auctoritatis super nos de Scriptura tua divina? Coelum enim plicabitur ut liber, et nunc, sicut pellis, extenditur super nos" (Capello 1948 541). break

      This analogy is of course closely related to that between the sciences and heavens which Dante develops in Convivio 2.13-14 (which itself goes back at least as far as Martianus Capella's assignment of each of the Muses to one of the heavens, 1.27-28); particularly relevant is Dante's statement of the grounds of the parallel, which are three: (I) like the heavens, each science revolves around its subject as around a center; (2) as the heavens illuminate the visible, so the sciences illuminate the intelligible; (3) like the heavens, the sciences induce perfection in their subjects ( Convivio 2.13.3-5); Busnelli and Vandelli (Dante 1964 188 n .4) cite parallels in Gregory the Great, Hugh of St. Cher, Isidore of Seville, and Ristoro d'Arezzo; see also d'Alverny 1964.

      The Commedia is partly the expression of an aspiration to shape Christendom according to the analogy Augustine establishes between the saints and clergy and the heavenly bodies. As we have seen, in "Io son venuto" and in Paradiso 22 Dante associates the emergence of talent with the rising of heavenly bodies, in a way derived from Augustine's use of the metaphor in the passages just quoted. The analogy Augustine draws between the influence of the heavenly bodies and that of the clergy also underlies Dante's entire treatment of the theologians in the cantos of the sun. The elaborate sun symbolism, for instance, of the parallel lives of St. Francis and St. Dominic ( Paradiso 11 and 12) derives directly from it (see Chapter 6, pp. 237-240):

Di questa costa, là dov'ella frange 
   più sua rattezza,  nacque al mondo un sole, 
   come fa questo talvolta di Gange. 
Però chi d'esso loco fa parole, 
   non dica Ascesi, ché direbbe corto, 
   ma Orïente, se proprio dir vuole. 
Non era ancor molto lontan da  l'orto, 
   ch'el cominciò  a far sentir la terra 
   de la sua  gran virtute  alcun conforto . . . 
          ( Paradiso  11.49-57; emphasis added)

de toutes les vertuz habonde 
que Diex a mises en cest monde; 
compainz est a toutes les choses 
qui sunt an tout le monde ancloses, 
et de leur bontez parçonierres: 
il a son estre avec les pierres, 
et vit avec les herbes drues, 
et sent avec les bestes mues; 
oncor peut il trop plus an tant 
qu'il avec les anges antant. 
Que vos puis je plus recenser? 
Il a quan que l'an peut penser, 
c'est uns petiz mondes noveaus. 
           (Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun 1970 3:71)

76. And both associate that arrival with the act of seeing the stars of Gemini ("io vidi 'l segno," Paradiso 22.10); in "Io son venuto," l'orizzonte ci partorisce refers to the emergence to sight of what is born, like nasceva in Paradiso 22.115).

77. See Appendix 1 for Dante's use in the De vulgari eloquentia of the metaphor of birth with reference to the petrose.

78. See above, Chapter 1, pp. 67-68, with notes.

79. This was first pointed out in Durling 1975 104-113.

80. For the importance of this principle in the Commedia, see Durling 1981a and 1981b. For the parallels between "Io son venuto" and the Inferno, see Freccero 1972; Durling 1975 117-120; and below, Chapter 6, pp. 201-224.

81. Hildegard of Bingen Liber divinorum operum simplicis hominis, PL 197.840, 847, 843-844, 819, respectively.

82. Grosseteste 1912 59 ("Quod homo sit minor mundus"): "Caput namque ad caelum refertur; in quo sunt duo oculi tanquam lumina solis et lunae. Pectus aeri coniungitur, quia sicut inde emittitur spiraminis flatus, sic ex aëri vento- soft

      rum spiritus. Venter autem mari assimilatur propter collectionem omnium humorum quasi congregationem aquarum. Vestigia postremum terrae comparantur. Sicut enim ultima membrorum arida sicut terra, sive sicca sicut terra." On Grosseteste's "microcosmism," see McEvoy 1982 370-401.

83. See Origen's allegoresis of creation, in his first homily on Genesis: Origène 1976 40-72 (this is Rufinus's Latin translation).

84. Gregory the Great's remarks ( PL 76.1214: "Habet homo commune esse cum lapidibus, vivere cum arboribus, sentire cum animalibus, intelligere cum angelis") underlie, as Gregory points out, John the Scot's influential discussion of man as officina in the De divisione naturae (see Chapter 1, notes 30 and 31). Jean de Meun has Nature echo Gregory's homily in Roman de la rose 19011-23. Man, she says,

85. See Stock 1972 198-219; Wetherbee 1972; Bernard Silvester 1973, 1978; and Kurdzialek 1971. For the rich diversity of Bernard's sources, which make the Cosmographia such an important intermediary of microcosmic thought, see also Dronke's collection of "testimonies" (Bernard Silvester 1978 70-91).

86. According to Timaeus 56b, the geometric form of the element of fire is the tetrahedron.

87. This is the Timaeus doctrine of the semen (74a-b, 91a-d), which Bernard seems to have known through Constantinus Africanus, the medical writer (see next note).

88. Bernard Silvester 1876 70-71. We have corrected Barach and Wrobel's text according to Vernet's text, quoted in Stock 1972 217. Italics are added to call attention to parts of the passage of special interest in connection with "Io son venuto": the entrusting of immortality to twin brothers; the use of astrological metaphors for the influence of the brain on the genitals (cf. Timaeus 91); the metaphor of flux and flood for orgasm; the notion of the little death. The twin genii are either the testicles or the male and female genitals (cf. also Maximianus's elegy in praise of the penis, quoted by Dronke in Bernard Silvester 1978 87-88). See also Dronke 1965 413-416; and Schipperges 1962. Wetherbee (Bernard Silvester 1973 134 nn . 107, 110) cites Constantinus Africanus De commu- soft

      nibus locis 3.15 and 3.35 as a possible source; cf. Bernard Silvester 1978 47-49, with notes.

89. For example, by Grosseteste; see above, note 82.

90. See Nardi 1966b.

91. Aristotle's De anima is the fountainhead of this tradition; see Aquinas 1959 153-162. Andreas Capellanus (1972 3-6) is the classic discussion of love as "immoderata cogitatio." See Durling 1971 on Petrarch's "Giovene donna sotto un verde lauro" (Petrarch found the suggestion of idolatry in the identification of the lady with stone).

92. For the topos, as well as for several aspects of the descriptions of winter in "Io son venuto," cf. Roman de la rose, lines 17889-902, on the effects of storms (the speaker is Nature):

Voire plourer a grosses lermes 
refont il l'air an divers termes, 
s'an ont si grant pitié les nues 
qu'el s'an depoillent toutes nues, 
ne ne prisent lors un festu 
le noir mantel qu'els ont vestu; 
car a tel deul fere s'atirent 
que tout par pieces le descirent; 
si li aïdent a plourer 
con s'an les deüst acourer, 
et pleurent si parfondemant, 
si fort et si espessemant 
qu'el font les fleuves desriver 
et contre les chans estriver. 
           (Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun 1970 3:37)

      As Lecoy notes (p. 172), the entire passage is imitated from Ovid's description of the deluge in Metamorphoses 2.272ff.—not, however, the topos of weeping.

93. Dante accepted the Aristotelian position on the primacy of the heart, the "hearth" of the body, parallel to the sun in the macrocosm, as repository of all the vital powers of the soul, as against the Platonic position, voiced by Bernard Silvester, on their being shared out. Dante's position derives especially, it seems, from Albertus Magnus's popularization of the commentaries by Averroës on Aristotle's scientific treatises. See Durling 1981b 6 n .1 and pp. 33-34.

94. In the Commedia, of course, Dante adopts the Aristotelian view that semen is ultra-digested heart's blood ( Purgatorio 25.37-45), just as in "Io son venuto" he locates the seat of passion in the heart, not the liver; see Durling 1981a 61-93.

95. In fact, Dante is drawing on a well-established interpretation of the Medusa; see pp. 105-106, 118, 143, 162-164, and 193-197, and note 97 below.

96. The richness of association includes Bernard Silvester; Seneca, on the cataclysm; Ovid, on the deluge; and Jean de Meun.

97. In addition to Ovid's version ( Metamorphoses 4.772-803; see next note), continue

      Dante was familiar with Jean de Meun's references in the Roman de la rose, lines 20787-21184. John Freccero (1972) established that there are focused echoes of stanza 5 in the Medusa episode in Inferno 9, which must thus be a comment on "Io son venuto."

98. Metamorphoses 5.182-235 and passim; e.g., "in hoc haesit signum de marmore gestu" (183). Cf. 3.418-419: "Adstupet ipse sibi vultuque inmotus eodem / haeret ut a Pario formatum marmore signum" (of Narcissus). The implication of whiteness is frequent in these passages.

99. This figure Cicero calls conversio, and Martianus Capella, antistrophe (both terms name the figure as a turning back toward the previous phrase). They are often paired in rhetorical handbooks: Cicero De oratore 3.54.206: "geminatio [but Dante did not know this treatise] verborum habet interdum vim, leporem alias, et paulum immutatum verbum atque deflexum et eiusdem verbi crebra turn a principio repetitio, turn in extremum conversio" (Wilkins 1902). Martianus Capella 5.534: "epanafora relatio, quotiens per singula membra eadem pars orationis repetitur hoc modo: 'Verres calumniatores apponebat, Verres de causa cognoscebat, Verres pronuntiabat.' antistrofe conversio. Haec figura hoc differt a superiore, quod in illa ab eadem parte orationis saepius incipitur, hic in eadem terminatur, ut est 'pro Fonteio frumenti numerus Gallia, peditatus amplissime Gallia, equites numero plurimo e Gallia."' See Foster and Boyde's commentary on "Al poco giomo," Dante 1967 2:265).

100. See Chapter 4, pp. 144-148.

101. The idea of symmetrically placed rhyme-words enclosing verses is exploited even more fully in "Amor, tu vedi ben che questa donna"; see Chapter 4, pp. 141-143. In "Io son venuto" a similar, though not as rigorous, symmetry governs the words Dante uses for cold (in each stanza contrasted with terms for warmth, always referring to the sun):

102. The third petrosa, "Amor, tu vedi ben che questa donna," also seems to appeal to natural procreativity; see Chapter 4, p. 156. Purgatorio 25-26 develops an extended parallel between procreation and poetic creation.

1. Riesz 1971 is a broad historical study. See also Fenzi 1966; Sheehan 1967; Bondanella 1971; Durling 1971; Freccero 1975; and Vanossi 1980 295-296. Roubaud (1969) is avowedly concerned with purely formal elements (see note 53 be- soft

      low), while the recent microanalyses of di Girolamo (1976) and Cudini (1982) stress phonic relations and proportions. A recent attempt to combine literary-historical and linguistic approaches is Shapiro 1980. Bartolozzi (1982), in the wake of Fenzi (1966), draws parallels with Ovid and suggests the relevance of the Medusa; we draw upon his useful reading below. One of the most suggestive readings of the poem remains Fiedler 1960.

2. Shapiro 1980 13, 33-34, 81-88.

3. Although Shapiro (1980) credits Petrarch with signifying, with the sestina, the human temporal predicament (cf. Durling 1965 84-86; Durling 1975 17-18), she denies Dante this sensibility. Dante's sestina is, rather, a "curiously static realization" (p. 91). She echoes Contini in judging the poem as showing "temporal notations superimposed on each other in an achronic segmentation that displays virtually no organic principle of succession" (p. 91) and adds: "Four of the six full strophes display maximal mobility: they could be exchanged, as to sense, with any other of them that produce a satisfactory closure of the series (II-V)" (p. 92). The studies of Durling (1971), di Girolamo (1976), Vanossi (1980), and Cudini (1982) also do not depart from Contini's premises in this respect.

4. Dante 1946, 157 (our translation).

5. In fact, as Contini notes (Dante 1946 156), five of the six rhyme-words in the sestina appear in rhyme in the canzone. For parallels between the petrose, see Baldelli 1973 937. Cudini (1982 185) notes the relations as well, but does not elaborate.

6. In the following list of shared, or closely related, words, each term is followed by two numbers giving verse numbers for the two poems, "Al poco giorno" first, "Io son venuto" second: perde (3, 28); però (4, 10); dura (5, 12); neve (7, 21); gelata, gelide (7, 29); dolce (10, 64-65 [36 dolzi ]); tempo (10, 67); riscalda, scalda (10, 16); tornar (11, 63-64); bianco (11, 20); fioretti (12, 47); mente (14, 12); amor (16, 27; 11, 23, 36, 50, 70); bellezza, bella (19, 25); piccioli (17, 39); forte (18, 13); vertù (19, 41); fuggire (21, 27); lume, lucente (23, 5); poggio, poggia (24, 24); fronda (24, 40); farsi, fare (23, 6); portare (27, 51); chiudere (30, 19); altissimo, alto (30, 55); ritornare, tornare (31, 63-64); fiume, rivo (31, 57); legno, ramo (32, 43). Similar phrasing includes: poco giorno, poca ombra (1, 9); però non cangia, però non disgombra (4, 10); copre di fioretti, morti li fioretti (12, 47); fare ombra, farsi velo (23, 6); poggio né muro mai né fronda verde, in lauro in pino o in abete (24, 44).

7. A striking parallel has been found in Peire d'Alvernha's "De jostals breus jorns els lonc sers" (Zenker 1900, 745; cited in Beggiato 1973 366), but the parallels do not persist through the poems.

8. For Dante's conception of night as a point opposite the sun, see Chapter 2, note 15. The conception is also hexaemeral; see Zahlten 1969, 174-178 (illustrations nos. 336-356) for examples of day and night as dark and light circles in medieval illustrations of the six days of creation.

9. See Bartolozzi 1982 2-4 for the relation of tenacity and change.

10. In Convivio 2.14.15, Dante notes that the sun cannot be looked at directly. In the sestina, the sun appears lexically only as a pun: "sol per veder do' suoi panni fanno ombra" (36), in antithesis to ombra at the end of the line and joined continue

      to per veder, alluding to the faculty the sun activates (cf. Timaeus 45b-46a; Convivio 2.8.14-15, 3.7.3-4, 3.9.12). For the traditional pun sol = solus, see Macrobius 1970a 79 ( quod talis solus appareat, sol vocetur ) and Isidore Etymologiarum liber 3.70.

11. At the beginning of the Inferno (1.38-39), Dante refers to the sun rising with the stars that accompanied it at the creation; it is early April, and the sun is in Aries. For the sun in Aries as generative, see "Io son venuto," 40-42; Paradiso 10.28-31, 28.117.

12. We established that in "Io son venuto" the heat and air in the fummifere acque (53) are macrocosmic forms of the heat and air that produce tumescence and ejaculation. The association of the heat in semen and the heat of the sun is a traditional one; Dante twice repeats the Aristotelian remark in the Physics that man is generated by another man and the sun ("generat enim homo hominem et sol," Monarchia 1.9.3). The homology of solar and seminal heat is explained in Aristotle's De generatione animalium 736b33-737a8; see the discussion in Albertus Magnus 1916-21 1085 ( De animalibus 16.23).

13. Seasons are the effect of the sun's motion along the ecliptic; see Aristotle, De generatione et corruptione 2.10 (336a15), and Dante's discussion of the indispensability of an inclined ecliptic if there are to be seasons, Paradiso 10.13-21.

14. In addition to links at points of articulation, structural affinities coordinate the two texts. Part d of each stanza of "Io son venuto," which marks the shift of focus to the condition of the speaker, is echoed in the first stanza of the sestina: "e'l mio disio però non cangia il verde." What is more, each instance of the "subdiesis" in "Io son venuto" then furnishes an element for a stanza of the sestina: the speaker's retention of amorous thoughts ("in tener forte imagine di petra," 13) appears reversed in the sestina when the lady expels other ladies from his mind ( "trae de la mente nostra ogn'altra donna," 14); the webs that Love withdraws from the winds ("ritira," 23-24) give way, in the sestina, to Love's capture by the lady's garlanded hair ("sì bel ch'Amor lì viene a stare a l'ombra," 16); the cruel thorn fixed in the speaker's heart in stanza 4 of the canzone recurs as the chief image of the lover's desire in the sestina ("barbato ne la dura petra," 5). And the speaker's resolution not to turn back on his quest, with reiteration of tornare in stanza 5 (63, 64), looks forward to the sestina's double use of tornare (11, 31). Such variations may be explained as mere technical exercise; we suggest, however, that in many respects the sestina magically inverts the terms of the canzone. See pp. 135-137 below.

15. Cudini (1982 185-188), following Contini's suggestion regarding the pairing of coordinate terms (Dante 1946 157), demonstrates a series of binary and ternary relationships ("la disposizione per coppie di elementi cui un terzo si unisce per ripresa ulteriore, per addizione," 186), among which are bicolon and tricolon, assonant pairing of the rhyme-words and the words that close hemistiches, the prevalence of trochees ( bisillabi piani ) in the accentual scheme (there are 122!), and unprecedented dittology (e.g., "per piani e per colli," 21). See also Vanasco 1979 112-113; and di Girolamo 1976 256-257, 261.

16. The relation of privation and act is an axiom of Aristotle's ontology. For the principle, see Metaphysics 7.6.1032b2-5. See also Albertus Magnus Physico- soft

      rum 1.2.16 (quoted in Shaw 1948 29): "privatio uno modo est contrarium, et secundum hoc est privatio actus et formae, sed alio modo est aptitudo in subiecto relicta ad formam, et sic principiat motum in materia, et hoc modo est appetitus et desiderii causa." This logic is particularly in evidence in discussions of light, which is defined as the act of the diaphanous medium, whose darkness is its potentiality for light; see Convivio 3.9.12 ("trasmutasi questo mezzo di molta luce in poca, siccome alla presenza del sole e alla sua assenza").

17. At Purgatorio 30.89, Dante refers to the equatorial zone as "la terra che perde ombra." Singleton (Dante 1975 748) notes Dante's allusion to a passage in Lucan describing the verticality of the sun's rays at the equator: "Hic quoque nil obstat Phoebo, cum cardine summo / Stat librata dies; truncum vix protegit arbor: / Tam brevis in medium radiis compellitur umbra. / Deprensum est hunc esse locum, qua circulus alti / Solstitii medium signorum percutit orbem" ( Pharsalia 9.428-432). Aside from the question of Lucan's poem as a source for the petrose (Contini notes in Dante 1946 153, for example, the close relation of Purgatorio 30.89 to the second stanza of "Io son venuto" and their common source in Lucan; verses 23-24 of "Al poco giorno"—"e dal suo lume non mi può far ombra / poggio né muro mai né fronda verde"—may themselves echo, as in "vix protegit arbor," the passage quoted above), the passage is suggestive for its close juxtaposition of the notions of sun, shadow, and solstice.

18. Compare Beatrice eclipsed by the "sol degli angeli," so bright "che Beatrice eclissò ne l'oblio" ( Paradiso 10.60).

19. For the most recent full discussion, see Daniel 1978 643-646.

20. Pellegrini (1953 30) suggests that uom petra is a single concept—"stoneman"—buried under the grass because frozen and dead. For criticisms of this reading, see Fiedler 1960 38; Pellegrini's interpretation is accepted by Shapiro (1980 99). Bartolozzi (1982 16) argues for an allusion to the serpent in the grass as in Virgil's first eclogue: "latet anguis in herba."

21. Fanno, trochaic, begins the second hemistich in 36; sparer, iambic, concludes the first in 39.

22. See Comens 1986.

23. For information on the heliotrope, Dante could draw on a rich encyclopedic tradition, on contemporary scientific sources, and on the poetic tradition. There are accounts in Isidore Etymologiarum liber 17.9.37 (1911), Marbodus of Rennes Liber de gemmis, PL 171.1757; Albertus Magnus 1967 88-89; Uguccione da Pisa Magnae derivationes (quoted in Toynbee 1902 267-269). For other lapidaries, see Evans 1922. For the Italians, see Intelligenza, 39.1-9 (in Battaglia 1930 400); Fiore 182.10 (Battaglia 1930 334); "Mare amoroso," 239 (in Contini 1960 2:496). For Dante's use of lore from the lapidaries, see Austin 1951-52.

24. Cioffari (1936-37) discusses both the stone and the plant and notes that in nineteen sources he consults, seventeen discuss both stone and plant together. For such conjunctions of precious stones and medicinal herbs (linked also to geometrical figures and constellations), see Evans 1922 108, 246-249.

25. The reading advanced by Pellegrini (1953 30) provides the lady with a green shadow; this is much more plausible if she is compared to a green stone continue

      (which, as a medium that reflects light, must color it; cf. Convivio 3.7.4). All the lapidaries list the heliotrope as green (it is often compared to the smaragdus ); some add blood-colored veins: "est autem colore smaragdino sanguineas habet venas" (Evans 1922 201); "come smiraldo su' color verdia / avegna che gottato di sanguigno," Intelligenza 39.6-7. It is suggestive that in "Io son venuto" Dante rhymes Etïopia with copia (14, 16); these two words are rhymed with elitropia in Inferno 24 (89, 91, 93).

26. It is true that in medieval Italian indefinite uom is rarely found in the accusative; but see verse 36 of Dante's "Poscia ch'Amor": "ché 'l saggio non pregia om per vestimenta," and Paradiso 3.36. Rohlfs (1968 2:232) cites also Purgatorio 17.33.

27. Austin (1951-52, 133-134) holds that Dante is referring here to limestone, petra calcina; such a reading is clearly possible, though the reading that involves zeugma is probably preferable precisely because it is rhetorically more elaborate. A similar instance of both inversion and zeugma may be found in one of Dante's sonnets, "Chi guarderà già mai," where the subject is also precious stones: "E però, lasso, fu'io così ratto / in trarre a me'l contrario de la vita / come vertú di stella margherita" (Dante 1946 120). Contini notes: "margherita, soggetto, come vertú è oggetto, d'un sottinteso ratto in trarre." One consequence of suppressing the verb phrase is the juxtaposition of stella and margherita, star and stone, suggesting the causal link between the virtue of the stone and the influence of the star.

28. "Nam si iungatur eiusdem nominis herba, / subtrahit humanis oculis quencunque gerentem" ( PL 171.1758a).

29. "Ulterius si elitropia huiusmodi nominis herba subiecta lapidi fuerit et sacrata legitimo carmine gemma reddit hominem invisibilem" (Evans 1922 229, fifteenth century, but based on Thomas of Cantimpré). Consultation of other lapidaries suggests that it is the juice or sap of the plant that is meant.

30. For examples in the scuola siciliana, see Vanasco 1979. Among the Tuscan poets, there are examples in Monte Andrea, "Poi che'l ferro la calamita saggia " (Contini 1960 2:466-467).

31. See Introduction, pp. 37-38, above.

32. Contini 1960 2:460-464. We give Contini's summary of stanza 2: "Tutta la stanza precisa le nozioni di potenza e atto: il sole purifica la pietra e la rende atta a ricevere dal suo specifico astro le concrete proprietà di gemma; la natura corrisponde al sole, il cuore (nobile) alla pietra (preziosa), la donna (che fa passare all'atto la virtualità amorosa) all'astro." In Guinizelli's canzone the precious stone is the gentle heart; in the sestina, the lady represents first the stone, then the star that activates other stones.

33. On trarre, see Dante 1967 2:190; and Guido delle Colonne, "Ancor che l'aigua" (Contini 1960 1:107-110), where trarre is used of the attractive powers of the lodestone (v. 78). The verb is often associated with the calamita. The Mare amoroso gives "Perciò inver'voi si trae ciascun core / sì come il ferro inver' la calamita (vv. 198-199 [Contini 1960 1:494]); and Guinizelli's "Madonna il fino amor," in a passage that impinges directly on "Amor, tu vedi ben," offers: "In quella parte sotto tramontana / sono li monti de la calamita, / che dan ver- soft

      tud' all'aire / di trar lo ferro" (vv. 49-52 [Contini 1960 2:455]). For trarre in Dante's sonnet "Chi guarderà già mai," see note 27 above.

34. See Introduction, pp. 32-45, above; and Guinizelli, "Al cor gentil," 14-15: "che dalla stella valor no i discende / anti che'l sol la faccia gentil cosa." Comparison of the lady to the sun is common in the poetic tradition; see Guido delle Colonne, "Gioiosamente canto," 15 ("lucente piú che spera"), and "Amor che lungiamente," 36-37 (Contini 1960 1:99, 105); and Guido Guinizelli, "Tegno di folle 'mpres', a lo ver dire," 23-24: "ed infra l'altre par lucente sole / e falle disparer a tutte prove," and 36: "come lo sol di giorno dà splendore" (Contini 1960 2:450). In the Convio 2.15.5 it is said of Lady Philosophy that doubts fall away in her presence "quasi come nebulette matutine a la faccia del sole; e rimane libero e piano di certezza lo familiare intelletto, sì come l'aere de li raggi meridiani purgato e illustrato." At Convivio 3.14.5 the lady's effect is that of splendor in the technical sense (cf. Paradiso 1.1-18).

35. See chapters 19-21, especially the prose commentary to the sonnet "Ne li occhi porta la donna mia Amore": "che ne la prima [parte] dico sì come virtuosamente fae gentile tutto ciò che vede, e questo è tanto a dire quanto inducere Amore in potenzia là ove non è . . ." (Dante 1980 141-142).

36. For this scheme, see Albertus Magnus 1967 14-18. Dante refers to the effect of the sun on precious stones in the Convivio 3.7.3: "Certi [corpi] sono che, per molta chiaritade di diafano avere in sé mista, tosto che'l sole li vede diventano tanto luminosi, che per multiplicamento di luce in quelle e ne lo loro aspetto, rendono a li altri di sé grande splendore, sì come è l'oro e alcuna pietra."

37. The link between the root of the speaker's desire and the efflorescence of the lady's passion follows Arnaut's sestina, which develops the ferm voler (1) of the speaker in terms of the rhyme-word verga, whose meanings range from the penis to various forms of wood (club, switch, rod, stick, frond, branch), inclusive of the flowering seca verga (25) of the Incarnation. See Jernigan 1974 143.

38. The poem's six stanzas, verging on a seventh, suggest the six-month alternation between summer and winter solstices. For the six-month separation of the solstices, see Macrobius, Commentarii 1.6.57: "sol quoque ipse de quo vitam omnia mutuantur septimo signo vices suas variat, nam a solstitio hiemali ad aestivum solstitium septimo pervenit signo."

39. For personified Spring, see Ovid's description in the Metamorphoses 2.27: "Verque novum stabat cinctum florente corona"; the verse is, appropriately, part of Ovid's description of the palace of Phoebus, the sun. For garlands and May ceremonies, see Toschi 1955 65. In the Purgatorio, the place of perpetual spring, the pilgrim has a vision of Lia making a garland (27.102). The "bel prato d'erba" is, like the "piccioli colli" of stanza 3, a displaced reference to parts of the lady's body; see below, note 66.

40. See Monarchia 2.7.10; in Epistola 3.7 the title is given as De rerum transformatione.

41. Fenzi 1966 244-245.

42. Daphne is rooted ("pigris radicibus haeret," Metamorphoses 1.551) and the Heliades are fixed in terms ("radice retenta est," 2.349) that will be echoed in the metamorphosis of Clytie. Medea's passion for Jason is given in terms of an continue

      elaborate simile describing combustion (7.79-83), but Apollo's passion merits a brush fire (1.492-496).

43. Ovid's tale of Actaeon, with its emphasis on the victim's flight before his own hounds ("fugit Autonoieus heros," Metamorphoses 3.198; "ille fugit per quae fuerat loca saepe secutus," 228; "famulos fugit ipse suos," 229), may be echoed in Dante's sestina ("ch'io son fuggito per piani e per colli," 21). Significantly, the episode occurs under the midday sun ("iamque dies medius rerum contraxerat umbras / et sol ex aequo meta distabat utraque," 144-145).

44. Bartolozzi 1982 14-16. Barbi admits as one of Dante's rime dubbie the sonnet "Nulla mi parve" (Dante 1946 267; for discussion, see Barbi and Pernicone 1940). The sonnet refers to Clytie; as Contini notes, verses 9-10 of the sonnet are a paraphrase of Ovid's verse describing Clytie's rotation: "vertitur ad solem mutataque servat amorem" ( Metamorphoses 4.270). Even if "Nulla mi parve" is not by Dante (and Barbi is very reluctant to accept it), Dante's verse 19 in the canzone "Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona" ("Non vede il sol, che tutto il mondo gira") appears to echo Metamorphoses 4.226-228: "omnia qui video, per quem videt omnia tellus, / mundi oculus". Dante's later interest in the fourth book of Ovid's poem is of course beyond doubt. The reference to the heliotrope plant at Epistola 5.1 links the plant to the sun, and probably to Clytie as well: "quoniam Titan exorietur pacificus, et iustitia sine sole quasi heliotropium hebetata quum primum iubar ille vibraverit, revirescet" (Dante 1979e 540). For the identification with the plant and not the stone, see Cioffari 1936-37.

45. The association of the heliotrope with Clytie is confirmed by the medieval commentators on Ovid, from Arnulf of Orléans to John of Garland, Giovanni del Virgilio, and the Ovide moralisé. See Ghisalberti's citation on John of Garland's entry on Clytie in the Integumenta Ovidii: "Convertitur in solsequium quasi sequens solem et alio nomine vocatur eliotropium ab elio quod est sol et tropos quod est conversio quia convertitur se ad solem." The heliotrope, John of Garland notes, is called cichorea because it "dances" with the celestial motion ( chorea ) (John of Garland 1933 51).

46. "In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas / corpora" is the incipit of Ovid's poem. For rich and nuanced readings of this structure, see Barkan 1986.

47. Contini's observation of "la frequente compenetrazione delle cose in rima: il bianchir del v.2, il color del successivo anticipano il verde della rima quarta, e la terza rima erba determina il barbato del v.5" (Dante 1946 157) points to the metamorphic dimension of the poem, which is closely linked to the natural metamorphoses of plants over the course of seasons—note the terms linked in Contini's list.

48. Clytie's episode in the Metamorphoses follows the narrative of the sun's passion for Leucothoe, where the sun's domination of the seasons and heavens is mentioned ("'Ille ego sum,' dixit 'qui longum metior annum, Omnia qui video, per quem videt omnia tellus, mundi oculus"' ( Metamorphoses 4.226-228); we have noted the relation of the pun on sole to vedere in the last line of the sestina.

49. A sonnet attributed to Dante, "Nulla mi parve" (Dante 1946, 267), paraphrases Ovid's text in a notably petroso context: "Né quella ch'a veder lo sol continue

      si gira / e'l non mutato amor mutata serba, / ebbe quant'io già mai fortuna acerba" (9-11).

50. Macrobius ( Commentarius, 1.20.4-5) observes that the sun is called the regulator ( moderator ) of the other planets because it sets a rule, or limit, on their motions: "moderator reliquorum dicitur quia ipse cursus eorum recursusque certa spatii definitione moderatur, nam certa spatii definitio est ad quam cum una quaeque erratica stella recedens a sole pervenerit, tamquam ultra prohibeatur accedere, agi retro videtur, et rursus, cum certam partem recedendo contigerit, ad directi cursus consueta revocatur. Ita solis vis et potestas motus reliquorum luminum constituta dimensione moderatur."

51. For the scheme in medieval rhetorical manuals, see Mari 1899; and, recently, Vanasco 1979 115-116.

52. "Plato in Timaeo cum de octo sphaeris loqueretur sic ait: ut autem per ipsos octo circuitus celeritatis et tarditatis certa mensura et sit et noscatur, deus in ambitu supra terram secundo lumen accendit quod nunc solem vocamus" (Macrobius 1970a 78 [1.20.2, quoting Timaeus 39b]).

53. See Convivio 3.5 in its entirety, esp. 3.5.13: "Dico adunque che'l cielo del sole si rivolge da occidente in oriente, non dirittamente contra lo movimento diurno, cioè del díe e de la notte, ma tortamente contra quello." In 3.5.14, the path of the sun over the year is compared to the spiral threads on a wine-press; see Chapter 2, note 6. But the text here is not certain.

54. There are numerous accounts of this scheme (e.g., Mari 1899 953-60; Daniel 1960 50; Riesz 1971 49-52; Dragonetti 1982 232-233; Shapiro 1980 7-8; and Vanasco 1979 114-117). The most succinct is the formula of Roubaud 1969 31-32: "La permutation de la sextine décrit simultanément ce double mouvement d'imbrication et de renversement en utilisant pour cela deux unités complexes 123 et 456 de trois rimes chacune (deux triplets de mots-rimes non rimés et non assonancés entre eux), la transformation réalisée par la permutation @ étant l'imbrication de l'unité 2ì, "inverse" de 2:654 et de l'unité 1, avec le résultat 6 1 5 2 4 3; la primauté de la 'retrogradatio' (préférée par les troubadours, par opposition aux trouvères) étant réalisée par la double inversion, celle de l'unité 2 et celle de l'imbrication, qui 'mélange' 2 et 1 dans cet ordre et non dans l'ordre opposé: 12-@-2ì1."

55. The resemblance of the sestina scheme to the combined movements of the Same and the Other is underscored if we think of one movement proceeding left to right (e.g., 1 2 3) and the other from right to left (e.g., 6 5 4), for Plato's terms describing the movements of the World-Soul are given in terms of right- and left-handedness: "The motion of the same he [the Demiurge] carried round by the side to the right [ a regione dextra per sinistrum latus usque ad dextrum inflexit ], and the motion of the diverse diagonally to the left [ per diametrum in sinistrum latus eidem ]. And he gave dominion to the motion of the same and like" ( Timaeus 36c [Plato 1961 1166]). See Introduction, note 22, for Calcidius's Latin text.

56. See Chapter 2, pp. 72-75, above. Dragonetti (1982 232, with diagram) has observed a version of this pattern in the sestina.

57. Fowler (1975 40) has observed that the paired order of the rhyme-words continue

      may be linked to the Ptolemaic distribution of zodiacal signs among the planets: "A normal sestina's endword sequence matches the sequence of corresponding lunar and solar zodiacal signs. The Ptolemaic division of signs between the chief luminaries followed a regular order whereby the pair closest to the zenith, Leo and Cancer, were assigned to Sol and Luna themselves; the next pair, Gemini and Virgo, to the most proximate planet, Mercury; Taurus and Libra to the next nearest, Venus, and so on round the zodiac. This distribution from alternate sides, particularly if we consider signs of the northern hemisphere alone (Scorpio / Aries / Sagittarius / Pisces / Capricorn / Aquarius), very much resembles the distribution of repeated words from alternate ends of a sestina stanza, working in to the middle. Moreover, pairs of numbers designating opposed signs add to 7, and make the familiar sequence 615243 starting from the solstitial point. Thus Dante's ode, which explicitly mentions the winter solstice ( Al poco giorno ) and which like many sestinas after it dwells on imagery of light and dark, may be meant to render in its stanzaic structure the sun's annual course round the ecliptic." Fowler's brilliant intuition is an important basis for our reading: the sun, among its other roles, is the ruler of the zodiac, which is bisected by the ecliptic, the solar path that results from its double motion. We can add to Fowler's insight the observation that Ptolemy's zodiacal distribution is based on placing the sun below Venus and Mercury (sometimes known as the Platonic order): this makes the sun sixth in the downward order of planets. Dante alludes to this Platonic order in the heaven of Gemini; see Chapter 6, p. 241, below. For the sun and the zodiac, see Freccero 1986 221-244.

58. On antistrophe, see Willis 1983 187 (5.534) and Chapter 2, n. 99, above.

59. Taking consecutive (not overlapping) pairs, compare ghirlanda d'erba/ fronda verde (stanzas 3.1, 4.6) to the mean terms calcina petra/più vertú che petra (3.6, 4.1); and vestita a verde/panni fanno ombra (5.1, 6.6) to chiuso . . . d'altissimi colli/ritorneranno i fiumi a'colli (5.6, 6.1—the return of the rivers, the cataclysm, is the completion of a long cycle, a return of the Same; see below, p. 128).

60. The sestina scheme involves taking the rhyme-words in opposed or reversed pairs (e.g., 61 52 43) but also in triplets (654 123), as the analyses of Fowler and Roubaud point out. The binary and ternary possibilities represent parts of the sestina's key number of six, interesting numerologically because it is both the sum and product of its aliquot parts 1, 2, and 3 (for the numerology of the sestina, see Appendix 3). As Cudini (1982 186) notes, the distribution of "syllabic mass" into binary and ternary structures is another form of emphasis on the number six; Vanasco (1979 117), in the wake of Mari 1899 957-958, shows that the order and proportion of rhyme-words may be expressed in a metrum quadrangulare (after Everard the German and his Laborintus ).

61. The close relation of the tropic and equinoctial points (it is, in a sense, the relation between the ecliptic circle and the equinoctial circle) is brought out in Aquinas's discussion of Timaeus 36b-d: "Nam in caelo consideratur duplex motus circularis; unus simplex et uniformis, secundum quem caelum movetur seu revolvitur motu diurno ab oriente in occidentem, qui quidem fit secundum circulum aequinoctialem. Alius autem motus est planetarum, qui est ab occi- soft

      dente in orientem secundum circulum Zodiacum, qui intersecat aequinoctialem in duobus solstitialibus punctis, scilicet in principio Cancri, et Capricorni" ( De anima 7.103 [Aquinas 1959 20]).

62. For the relation of the tradition of the Timaeus to Dante's Commedia in particular, see "The Pilgrim's Firm Foot on the Journey Without a Guide," "Pilgrim in a Gyre," " Paradiso X: The Dance of the Stars," "The Final Image: Paradiso 33," all in Freccero 1986. For the background of the Timaeus in the Middle Ages, see Gregory 1955 and 1958. A recent omnibus of this tradition is Miller 1986.

63. Aquinas ( De anima 7.105) writes that the two circles in Timaeus's discourse signify odd and even with respect to number (cf. 2, 3), mobile and fixed intelligence with respect to the soul, and the equinoctial and zodiacal circular motions with respect to the heavens.

64. Our pun is not wholly facetious. As Albert and Thomas observe in their commentaries on Aristotle's De anima, the division of the circle of the Other in Timaeus's account requires, if it is to produce seven orbits, six divisions. The sestina, too, if the tornata is included, has seven parts produced with six divisions. The linear extension of the sestina can thus be linked to the divisions in the Other, the principle of recirculation of the rhyme-words to the unchanging circulation of the Same. Like the movement of the Other, however, which returns always to the movement of the Same (the equinoctial crossings), the linear movement of the sestina is also included in a great cycle that returns it to the movement of the Same—the order of the rhyme-words repeats itself if the sestina is prolonged.

65. See Chapter 1, note 30.

66. Some of the erotic dimensions to the language of the sestina have been noted by Austin (1951-52 133), who observes that colli in 17 might refer to the lady's breasts; and by Fiedler (1960 37), who suggests a sexual meaning for the phrase dormire inpetra. Pézard (Dante 1979d 200) points to the reminiscence of the Song of Songs in the piccioli colli (e.g., "duo ubera," "mammae tuae"); see the recent discussion of this aspect by Cudini (1982 194-195). The sexuality in the language is a debt to Arnaut's sestina, whose sexual meanings have been explored by Jernigan (1974) and Shapiro (1980 39-43). On erba (Dante 1967 2:267), recall the Provençal and Sicilian commonplace of Pelias's spear, sole remedy of the wound it causes, a figure for the stroke of love.

67. For Petrarch's adaptation of this image to his own tropism around the laurel—the metamorphosed, sublimated Laura—see Freccero 1975.

68. The imperative to procreate, as part of Nature's struggle against death, is in the tradition of Alain of Lille's De planctu naturae, Bernard Silvester's De mundi universitate, and the Roman de la rose (vv. 19505-19906). See Chapter 2, pp. 96-99, above.

69. Timaeus 37d-39a; see Appendix 3.

70. On the adynaton we have consulted Curtius 1953 97; Cherchi 1971; and Shapiro 1980 70-90.

71. A providential (but possibly also natural) such event is the calming of the continue

      Tiber's current in the Aeneid, facilitating the return of Aeneas to the ancestral home of the Trojan race ("tacita refluens," 8.87). See also Guinizelli's sonnet "Madonna mia" (Contini 1960 2:475): "tornerà l'acqua in su d'ogni rivera," 4.

72. For the rising of waters in Seneca, see Naturales quaestiones 3.27-30, esp. 3.27.11: "iam omnia, qua prospici potest, acquis obsidentur: omnis tumulus in profundo latet et inmensa ubique altitudo est. tantum in summis montium iugis vada sunt"; also 3.28.6: "ergo ut solet aestus aequinoctialis sub ipsum lunae solisque coitum omnibus aliis maior undare, sic hic, qui ad occupandae terras mittitur, solitis maximisque violentior plus aquarum trahit nec ante quam supra cacumina eorum, quos perfusurus est, montium crevit, devolvitur"; and 28.7: "qua ratione, inquis? eadem ratione, qua conflagratio futura est. utrumque fit, cum deo visum ordiri meliora, vetera finiri. acqua et ignis terrenis dominantur. ex his ortus est et ex his interitus est." That Christian miracles explode the limits of pagan adynata was a topos of Christian apologetics; see, for example, Innocent III's relation of the prophecy that the Roman temple of justice would last "dum virgo pariet" and thus, from the pagan perspective, would be everlasting ( Sermo in nativitate domini, PL 112.253).

73. See the letter to Can Grande Epistole 13.7. The importance of the psalm and its interpretation in the structure of the Commedia is of course well established, largely because of Erich Auerbach and C. S. Singleton; see Singleton 1960; and Shapiro 1980 72.

74. In the sestina, there is also the prospect of a bestial diet of grass like that of mad Nebuchadnezzar (Bartolozzi 1982 14) in Daniel 4:22: "et foenum, ut bos, comedes." Ovid's Io, transformed into a heifer, suffers a similar fate ("frondibus arboreis et amara pascitur herba," Metamorphoses (1.632), as does Ocyroe ("iam cibus herba placet," 2.662.)

75. For the position of the planets after the end of time in the opinion of Thomas Aquinas, see Litt 1963 247.

76. Dante's adynaton of the rivers flowing up to the hills is virtually proverbial, as Shapiro recalls (1980 89), citing Horace's version in Odes 1.29.11: "quis neget arduis / pronos relabi posse rivos / montibus et Tiberim reverti." See also Ovid Metamorphoses 13.324: "ante retro Simois fluet." Other uses actually link the return of rivers to the backward movement of the sun. Because of the importance of Aeneid 4 elsewhere in the petrose (see Chapter 2, p. 71, and Chapter 5, p. 182), the adynaton at 4.489 ("sistere aquam fluviis, et vertere sidera retro"), referring to the impossibility of Dido's changing Aeneas's mind ("ab incepto retorquere," glosses Servius), is especially suggestive.

77. For the magna dies domini, see Amos 8:9-14; Zephania 1:7, 14-18; Malachi 4:1-4; Zecharia 14:1-12; Micah 4:1-13; Joel 2:1, 31, 3:1, 12-15; and 2 Peter 3:10. Litt (1963 244-47) discusses the day of the Lord in the context of the pagan magnus annus (see Chapter 6, p. 251, below). In addition to the expression magna dies domini (Joel 2:1; Zephaniah 1: 7), the darkening of the sun is a topic of the day of the Lord: "Sol convertitur in tenebras, et luna in sanguinem" (Joel 2:1); "Et erit in die illa, dicit Dominus Deus, occidet sol in meridie. Et tenebrescere faciam terram in die luminis" (Amos 8:9); "Et erit in die illa: non erit lux, sed frigus et gelu" (Amos 14:6). The obscuration of the planetary sun continue

      marks the coming of the Sun of Justice; see Malachi 4:2: "Et orietur vobis timentibus nomen meum Sol iustitiae."

78. In Dante 1967 2:264, it is observed that poco giorno is "a nice example of a callida iunctura rendering novum a notum verbum (cf. Horace Ars poetica 46-48). In rhetoric such a usage was called abusio (catachresis): 'A. est quae verbo simili et propinquo pro certo et propio abutitur, hoc modo: Vires hominis breves sunt, aut parva statura' ( Rhet. ad Her. 4.33.45)."

79. This is one of the usual glosses to Paradiso 23.12-13, "la plaga / sotto la quale il sol mostra men fretta." The sun moves slowest in the ecliptic at the time of the summer solstice. The other gloss usually offered, that the place indicated is that of the sun at noon, is of course compatible.

80. See Perugi 1978 79. The poetics of the sestina itself is at work in the relation of rhyme-words. Ombra is assonant with the tonics of donna and colli and with the atonic final vowels of erba and petra. But it is also consonant with the mute/liquid cluster of petra and with the inversion of such clusters in erba and verde.

81. See Chapter 6, pp. 253-255.

82. On the numerology of the sestina, see Appendix 3.

83. On this allusion in Arnaut, see the discussions in Daniel 1978 640; Shapiro 1980 41 and Jernigan 1974 142-144. For the figural context of Joseph's wand, see Kaske 1971.

84. Shapiro 1980 40; for Dante's discussion of the stanza as a room ( stantia, mansio ), see De vulgari eloquentia 2.ix.2 and our discussion above, Chapter 1, pp. 22-32.

85. We follow Daniel 1960 375-378 for the text. For other readings of these verses, which substantially alter the meaning of the tornada, see Jernigan 1974 146-148.

86. For the order of the rhyme-words, see Daniel 1978 643; as Perugi notes there, part of the reasoning in defense of the order ongla, oncle, is the convention of the tornada as repeating the sirma. As we know, Dante himself considered the sestina stanza to be without diesis (see Introduction, pp. 23-27).

87. The poem thus becomes a kind of carmen retrogradum; cf. Roncaglia 1981 19-20. For description and specimens of retrograde verses in Latin, see John of Garland's Paisiana poetria (1977 chap. 2, verses 196-210; chap. 6, verses 164-170; chap. 7, verses 1189-1215). Dante certainly knew the pavement inlay in the Florentine baptistery, showing the sun at the center of a zodiacal wheel inscribed with the palindrome "EN GIRO TORTE SOL CICLOS ET ROTOR IGNE," suggesting the back-and-forth motion of the sun between solstices (Freccero 1986 230, 311).

88. "Nam si iungatur eiusdem nominis herba / Carmine legitimo, verbo sacrata potenti, / Subtrahit humanis oculis quemcunque gerentem" (Marbodus Liber de gemmis, PL 171.1758a).

89. The whole question of Petrarch's debt to the petrose (see, e.g., Durling 1971 and 1976 16-18) needs to be reconsidered in the light of the evidence presented in this chapter and elsewhere in this book.

90. As Fiedler notes (1960 38), one of the times implied by quandunque is continue

      the present of the speaker's utterance and the reader's experience of the poem. In this sense speaker and reader are the conjunction—like petra and erba —that activates the virtue of the sestina and releases the speaker from his bondage; or, perhaps, entraps the reader as well.

91. As Bloom (1975 278) puts it, "poems are apotropaic litanies, systems of defensive tropes and troping defenses"—though we are taking the idea in a less metapoetic sense than Bloom does.

1. Contini's view of "Amor, tu vedi ben" seems to be that the strain of maintaining the rhyme scheme leads Dante inevitably to take refuge in a series of unrelated conceits: "un tal gioco di rime sfuggirà ai processi evocativi e tenderà a provocare sintatticamente, sempre nuovi 'concetti"' (Dante 1946 160-161).

2. Marigo calls the poem "Bizantinismo sottile e non degno di Dante, ozio di letterato medievale non di poeta" (Dante 1957a clii).

3. Dante 1979a 234-236.

4. Marigo again: "La canzone Amor, tu vedi ben, non è allegata come opera eccellente di poesia, ma come frutto di uno sforzo ( nisi sumus ) nuovo e ingegnosissimo di artificio tecnico . . . . Novum aliquid atque intentatum è veramente questo componimento colle sottili e non sempre chiare varietà di sensi date alle medesime parole, e col concetto della parola-rima dominante, che insiste e s'aggira intorno a quelli delle altre quattro in ogni stanza . . . . Se badiamo al paragone ut nascentis militie dies ecc., ne inferiremo che la prova del tormentatissimo artificio à stata fatta nel tempo in cui la sua fama di rimatore cominciava ad affermarsi" (Dante 1957a 272). Marigo's metaphor of the "circling" of the rhymewords is a curious abortive insight.

      A noteworthy exception to the general view is König 1983, who regards the poem as a "high point" of Dante's "Formkunst" (p. 245); see also below, notes 13 and 19; for the interpretation of the reference to the poem in De vulgari eloquentia, see Appendix 1. König's suggestive discussion sees the achievement of the poem as "die Vorstellungswelt, Sprache und metrische Formkunst des 'neuen Stils' in das vom reifen Dante für schwieriger und aussagemächtiger erachtete provenzalische Dichtungsmodell eingebracht und—unter Erhaltung ihrer Eigenart—auf eine höhere Stufe der Formgestalt gehoben zu haben" (p. 251). He mentions in passing the centrality of the rhyme-word freddo and the presence of microcosmic thinking in stanza 3.

5. See De Bruyne 1946, vol. 3, devoted to the thirteenth century.

6. It is associated also with color. Behind all the twelfth- and thirteenth-century discussions of claritas lies the famous passage in the Pseudo-Dionysius's discussion of beauty as a name of God ( De divinis nominibus 4; see De Bruyne 1946 3: 126 n .3; Aquinas 1950 112):

Supersubstantiale vero pulchrum pulchritudo quidem dicitur propter traditam ab Ipso omnibus existentibus, juxta proprietatem uniuscuiusque, pulchritudinem et sicut universorum consonantiae et claritatis causa, ad similitudinem luminis, cum fulgore immittens universis pulchrificas fontani radii ipsius traditiones. break

The supersubstantially beautiful is called Beauty because it gives all things their beauty according as is fitting, as the cause of the harmony and brightness of all things, in the likeness of the light which shines with its brilliance into all things, allowing them to partake of the rays of the fount itself so as to become beautiful.

      For the pervasive influence of the Pseudo-Dionysius in Gothic style, see Panofsky 1946 and von Simson 1959. See also below, notes 52, 53, and 59.

7. This should not be thought an arbitrary observation. In De vulgari eloquentia 2.Xiii.10, Dante uses the terminology of inner and outer to refer to the middle as opposed to the first and last lines of pedes and versus; see below, Appendix 4, p. 325.

8. So says Seneca; see Introduction, pp. 38-39.

9. Given the astrological context, the term sembiante may include a reference to the astrological notions of aspect, rejoicing, and being cast down; see Boll, Bezold, and Gundel 1931 58-60; Gundel and Gundel 1950 2122-24.

10. In relation to freddo, luce is a trope (genus for species, thus a synechdoche); as referring to planetary influence it is used in its proper sense.

11. For Jean de Meun's use of this analogy, which Dante probably has in mind, see Chapter 2, note 92.

12. Perhaps via the medical notion of the spiriti whereby the brain exercises control over the body. The theory derives from Galen, and there may well be also a reference to the widespread notion, also derived from Galen, that the vapors arising from seminal fluid were often the carriers—or recipients—of images. See Nardi 1966b.

13. Jeanroy (1913) shows that the stanza of "Amor, tu vedi ben" is a variant of a well-established Provençal type. König (1983 247-250) has a good discussion of the relation to Provençal models.

14. The De vulgari eloquentia of course makes no mention whatever of rhyme-words as distinct from rhymes; in fact, in citing "Amor, tu vedi ben" as an instance of repetition of the same rhyme, Dante seems to obliterate the distinction altogether.

15 . Vita nuova 19; see Chapter 1.

16. "Donne ch'avete," whose versus are identical with those of "Amor, tu vedi ben," is another unicum: alone among Dante's canzoni, it has pedes that are longer than its versus. As Mengaldo observes (Dante 1979a 216-217), Dante's usual practice is to have the sirma exceed the pedes, usually by one verse. Among the other peculiarities of "Donne ch'avete" are its continuing the rhymes of the first division into the second and the closeness of its form to that of the sonnet: ABBC.ABBC.CDD.CEE. Like many sonnets, and like "Amor, tu vedi ben," it has five rhymes. See König 1983 247-248; cf. note 48 below.

17. More clearly than the number twelve (the number of lines in its stanza), six, as the number of appearances of a rhyme-word, would seem to relate this form to that of the sestina, in which (independently of the commiato ) each rhyme-word appears a total of six times. See below, note 46, and Appendix 2.

18. The order in the commiato is the order in which the rhyme-words have predominated in the stanzas, except that the central one is repeated. break

      It is worth reflecting that if the principle of the sestina had been followed in "Amor, tu vedi ben," the result would have been the following sequence:

1.  ABA.ACA:ADD.AEE
2.  EAE.EDE:EBB.ECC
3.  CEC.CBC:CAA.CDD
4.  DCD.DAD:DEE.DBB
5.  BDB.BEB:BCC.BAA

      Dante may be presumed to have considered and rejected this scheme, which has the following disadvantages as compared with the one he actually adopted: (a) here, the third and fourth rhyme-words dominate, respectively, the third and fourth stanzas, rather than the fourth and third—in other words, the rule of changing the original order is lost at the center; (b) here, with retrogradatio cruciata, the entire first half of each successive stanza is occupied by rhymes from the second half of the previous one—in other words, Dante's scheme spreads the rhymes from one stanza out more evenly across the following one; (c) here, except for the stanza where it would appear six times, stanzas in which a rhymeword appears once alternate with ones in which it appears twice—in Dante's scheme, in contrast, as we have seen, there is an ordered progression of frequency. Each of these differences is important to the effects Dante sought in "Amor, tu vedi ben," and one of the proofs lies in the fact that the order of the rhyme-words in the commiato is determined not by the rule by which the order has been changed from stanza to stanza, but by the order in which the rhymewords have predominated; in other words, the sequence in the commiato recapitulates microcosmically the structural peculiarity of the poem as a whole.

19. In the sestina, each rhyme-word appears twice at the corresponding point—i.e., ending the last line of one stanza and the first line of the next. König (1983 249-250) makes the interesting observation that a consequence of the form of "Amor, tu vedi ben" is that after the stanza in which a rhyme-word predominates, once it has appeared in line 2 of the immediately following stanza there is a gap of fourteen verses before its next appearance, a gap which he argues refers to the predominance in Dante's early production of stanzas of fourteen lines.

20. This is the mode of thought that lies behind the lines in Purgatorio 2.1-9, describing how night circles opposite the sun. See Index under Inversion.

21. Per questo freddo has the further meaning "because of this cold weather," that is, because of the special tempering the poet's nature is receiving within the ongoing processes of nature.

22. If we list the appearances of rhyme-word C, distinguishing between the two halves of the stanzas, we have the following: (1) 1:0, (2) 0:2, (3) 0:2, (4) 4:2 (5) 1:0. Thus, within the stanza where it dominates, the frequency of the rhyme-word declines from four instances in the first half to two in the second and then, in the next half-stanza, to one, its lowest frequency.

23. There may well be an echo in lines 11-112 of "Amor, tu vedi ben" of Jean continue

      de Meun's description of Pygmalion ( Roman de la rose, lines 20817-830 [Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun 1974 549-550]; emphasis added):

Pygmalions, uns  entaillieres 
Portreans en fust et  en pierres, 
En metaus, en os et en cires 
Et en toutes autres matires 
Qu'en puet en tex ovres trouer, 
Por son grant engin esprouver, 
[Car onc de li nus ne l'at mieudre . . .] 
Si fist une ymage d'ivuire; 
Si fist et portret l'ymagete 
Si bien compassee et si nete, 
Et mist au fere tel entente 
Qu'el fu si plesans et si gente 
Qu'ele sembloit estre aussi vive 
Cum la plus bele riens qui vive.

      See Chapter 5, note 125, and Chapter 6, pp. 196-198.

24. See, for instance, Augustine Confessions 13.2.2:

Quid te promeruit materies corporalis, ut esset saltem invisibilis et incomposita . . .  quia non erat, promereri ut esset non poterat. Aut quid te promeruit inchoatio creaturae spiritalis, ut saltem tenebrosa fluitaret, similis abysso, tui dissimilis, nisi per idem Verbum converteretur ad idem, a quo facta est, atque ab eo illuminata lux fieret . . . ?"
(1948 521; emphasis added)

How did corporeal matter deserve from you that it might be even without form and void? since it was not, it could not deserve to be. Or how did the inchoate spiritual creature deserve from you to have even its fluid shadowy existence, similar to the abyss and different from you, unless it were turned by that same Word to the Same, by which it was made and, illuminated by him, became light?

For the thirteenth-century discussions of first matter, see Nardi 1960 69-101.

25. In this view, cold is an effect of light just as warmth is.

26. In Dante 1946 160: "rime tanto più astratte di quelle della sestina."

27. It is a vital part of the plan of the petrose that, in addition to the rhymewords that end its stanzas, "Io son venuto" includes, often in rhyming position, most of the words that appear in the two sestinas as rhyme-words (in the following list, italics indicate that the word appears rhymed in "Io son venuto"): ombra (line 9), verde (30, 43; cf. "verdura," 45), freddo (21, 35; cf. "freddura," 61), tempo (31, 67), erba (42); closely related to colli is piagge (46), and to luce, "lucente" (5); cf. also the keywords "vertù" (41), "stagion forte" (45), "raggio" (5). One may remember the chiastic ordering of the rhyme-words of "Io son venuto": petra-marmo ( I-congedo ), donna-dolce (2-5), tempo-sempre (3-4); see Chapter 2, pp. 105-106.

28. As Fenzi observed; see Chapter 2, note 3.

29. See Introduction, pp. 37-45, on the theory of formation of stones. break

30. One of the ideas Dante has in mind in comparing the poem to a crystal is certainly the fact that crystals served as burning glasses, whose traditional shape was not lenticular but spherical. The lapidaries know nothing of refraction or focus. The traditional idea, expressed by Isidore of Seville and repeated even by Albertus Magnus, was that crystal, when placed in the sun, emits fire: Albertus Magnus De mineralibus 2.2.3 (1890-99 5:32): "Hic (scil. cristallus) frigido oculo solis appositus ignem ejicit: sed si calidus sit, hoc perficere non potest" ("This, if placed cold in the eye of the sun, emits fire: but if it is warm it cannot do so" [Albertus Magnus 1967 83; Wyckoff's translation has been revised]).

      Isidore is clearly a direct source for Albertus; see Etymologiarum liber 16.13, PL 82:577: "Hic oppositus radiis solis adeo rapit flammam, ut aridis fungis, vel foliis ignem praebeat" ("This, placed in the rays of the sun, so seizes its fire that it extends fire to dry bark or leaves"). In the thirteenth century it was being realized that the shape of the glass was what focused the rays of the sun; among lapidaries, as far as we have been able to ascertain, the only one to mention the fact was the thirteenth-century Lapidario del rey D. Alfonso X.

      One of the basic ideas of "Amor, tu vedi ben," and perhaps one of the reasons for its being so cold, is that it is to be placed before the lady in the light, in the hope that it will be the one precious stone that can help him, that it will emit the fire that will ignite her heart; this is closely related to the ending of"Così nel mio parlar," in which the poem itself is made an arrow designed to strike the lady's heart.

      In another connection Dante closely associates the crystal emitting fire with the sun; see Paradiso 25.101-102: "Se Cancro avesse un tal cristallo, / l'inverno sarebbe un mese d'un sol di." See Chapter 6, pp. 250-255.

31. See preceding note.

32. See above, note 6.

33. Paradiso 2.139-144, using luce as a verb, draws a parallel between the light of a heavenly body, which is attributed to the happiness of its angelic mover, and the light of gladness in the pupil of the human eye; the parallel depends, like Dante's use of luce in "Amor, tu vedi ben," on the idea that the eye emits light (see Chapter 6, pp. 228-232):

Virtù diversa fa diversa lega 
   col prezïoso corpo ch'ella avviva, 
   nel qual, sì come vita in voi, si lega. 
Per la natura lieta onde deriva, 
   la virtù mista per lo corpo luce 
   come letizia per pupilla viva.

34. This was of course the term for the crystalline lens of the eye from as far back as Alexandrian times; Galen's notion of its function as the organ of sight properly speaking was the most widely echoed opinion in the Middle Ages.

35. Spherical crystals have in many ages been treated as models of the cosmos as well. This may well have some connection with the fact that Aristotle and others compare the transparency of the celestial spheres to that of crystal; continue

      and crystalline heaven was the name given to the outermost sphere (see Enciclopedia dantesca, s.v. "cristallo"). An interesting example is discussed in Dumas 1982, on item no. 6 of Childeric's tomb, a "boule de crystal de roche diam. 45-46mm": "Des boules semblables dont le diamètre varie de 25 à 55 mm. ont été fréquemment découvertes dans les tombes tant d'hommes que de femmes, souvent montées en pendentifs formés de cercles d'or et surtout d'argent qui se croisent."

      The connection between crystals and the eye was particularly well established in literature; Dante almost certainly has in mind the passage in Guillaume de Lorris's portion of the Roman de la rose where the dreamer sees in the Fountain of Narcissus two crystals (implied to be round or at least rounded) that show him the contents of the Garden of Déduit (Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun 1974 79-80):

Ou fons de la fontainne aval 
Avoit deus pierres de cristal 
Qu'a grant entente remirai. 
Et une chose vos dirai 
Qu'a merveilles, ce croi, tendrés 
Maintenant que vous l'entendrés. 
Quant li solaus, qui tout aguiete 
Ses rais en la fontainne giete, 
Et la clartés aval descent, 
Lors perent colors plus de cent 
Es cristaus, car por le solel 
Deviennent jaunes et vermel. 
Si sont cil cristal merveilleus, 
Et tel force ont que tous li leus, 
Arbres et flors, et quanqu'aorne 
Li vergiers, i pert tous a ore. 
             (lines 1537-52)

      Dante does not take over any of the details of the passage; it is striking, in fact, that color—which Aristotle and Galen identify as the visible as such—is not mentioned in "Amor, tu vedi ben." While the idea of light, as well as its association with the notion that Love's arrow enters the heart via the eye, is a commonplace by Dante's time, to be sure, it had been given its most brilliant development by Guillaume de Lorris in this portion of the Roman de la rose; see Chapter 5, pp. 179-182, with notes. In this, as in many other respects, the rime petrose must be seen against the background of this important thirteenth-century masterpiece; see above, note 23. If "Amor, tu vedi ben," at one level of meaning, brings the statue of the lady to life, it involves as well a reference to the myth of Pygmalion ( Metamorphoses 19.243-297), used by Jean de Meun as the corrective to the example of Narcissus ( Roman de la rose, lines 20818-21194); the close association of the myths derives from Ovid. See Poirion 1970; also Chapter 5, pp. 196-197.

36. See Chapter 2, pp. 96-106.

37. The idea that the overarching atmosphere is like an eye looking at the continue

      heavens is not as outlandish as it may seem; indeed, it underlies the analogy between weeping and precipitation we have seen in "Io son venuto," "Amor, tu vedi ben," and the Roman de la rose. The analogy is familiar in architecture as well. The most famous monument of ancient Rome, for example, the Pantheon, has a hemispherical vault that is an analog both of the spherical cosmos itself and of the atmosphere. The oculus, as it is called, at the summit of the vault, is open to admit the moving rays of the sun: the building as a whole (whose spherical structural module is partly dissembled in the flat floor) is like a giant eyeball. Seen from above, the similarity is particularly striking. See the illustrations in de Fine Licht 1968 figs. 5 (p. 13) and 228 (p. 231); cf. fig. 206 (p. 203), of the Thermae Mercurii at Baiae; MacDonald 1976 figs. 15 (p. 23), 37 (p. 39), and 98 (p. 91). See Chapter 6, pp. 252-255.

38. See, for instance, Augustine's famous discussion of frui and uti in De doctrina christiana 11

39. Contini glosses forte tempo as "aspra tempesta," which is of course a possible reading. We follow Foster and Boyde, whose interpretation seems preferable for the following reasons: (1) The possessive must indicate a special connection between the tempo and Love; the spring is peculiarly Love's own, "quando piove / amore in terra da tutti li cieli" ("Io son venuto," 67-68). (2) The threat of death in the springtime would be parallel with the ending of, again, "Io son venuto," and although petrifaction is not explicitly mentioned here, the theme is so important in "Amor, tu vedi ben" that it would have to be understood; this would, then, be a further reference to the theme of the Medusa. (3) A number of other parallels between "Io son venuto" and "Amor, tu vedi ben" and surrounding "Al poco giorno" as well are more specifically wintry.

40. Cf. Boccaccio's used of the term tempo for "opportunity" in the Decameron; for example, 2.3.28 (1976114): "Idio ha mandato tempo a' miei desideri" ("God has provided an opportune time for the fulfillment of my desires"); 2.5.78 (1976 139): "preso tempo" ("seizing the opportunity"); 2.6.9 (1976 143): "attender tempo" ("wait for the favorable moment").

41. Aquinas Summa theologica Ia, quaest. 46, art. 3 (1875 1:342): "Quattuor enim ponuntur simul creata, scilicet coelum empyreum, materia corporalis, quae terrae intelligitur, tempus, et natura angelica" ("It is held that four things were created simultaneously, namely the empyrean heaven, corporeal matter, implied in the term earth, time, and the angels")—cf. Summa contra gentiles 1.15 (1875 12:20): "Omne quod incipit esse vel desinit, per motum vel mutationem hoc patitur . . . . [Deus] est . . . aeternus, carens principio et fine" ("Everything that begins to be or stops being does so through a motion or change . . . . [God] is . . . eternal, having neither beginning nor end").

      We must note how misleading is Contini's note to lines 49-50 (1946 164): "Amore è una vertù, dunque non propriamente una sostanza, e si è d'accordo con la Vita nuova (xxv.II)." The reference is to Dante's "Amore è uno accidente in substantia"; the notion of an accident that would precede time is selfcontradictory. But Dante's definition is in any case deliberately misleading (see below, notes 42 and 50). break

42. In both "Amor, tu vedi ben" and the Vita nuova, Dante is thinking of the Pseudo-Dionysius's treatment of the names of God as naming superessential absolutes in which the creatures participate. Albertus Magnus writes:

 . . . est commune omnium istorum nominum de quibus in hoc libro agitur quod in Deo sunt res significatae per nomen essentialiter et per prius et ab ipso sunt in aliis sicut a causa effectiva et exemplari.
( Super Dionysium de divinis nominibus, art. 13, quaest. 1 ad 1 [quoted in Ruello 1963 103n.73])

. . . it is common to all those names which are discussed in this book that the things signified by the names are in God essentially and in a prior way and because of him they are in other things, he being their effective and exemplary cause.

      Aquinas explains:

Nullum nomen convenit Deo secundum illam rationem secundum quam dicitur de creaturis: nam sapientia in creaturis est qualitas, non autem in Deo . . . .  Quia omnis effectus non adaequans virtutem causae agentis recipit similitudinem agentis, non secundum eandem rationem, sed deficienter: ita ut quod divisum et multipliciter est in effectibus, in causa est simpliciter et eodem modo; sicut sol secundum unam suam virtutem multiformes et varias formas in istis inferioribus producit.
( Summa theologica Ia, quaest. 13, art. 5; Opera omnza 1.91; emphasis added)

No name belongs to God by the same principle by which it is said of creatures: for wisdom in creatures is a quality, but not in God . . . .  For every effect that is less than the power of the efficient cause receives the likeness of the agent, not according to the principle, but deficiently: so that what exists divided and in multiplicity in the effects, in the cause exists simply and according to one mode; just as the sun by its one power ( virtutem ) produces many and various forms in these lower creatures.

      See note 57 below.

43. See also Origène 1976 24 (Rufinus's translation): "In hoc ergo principio, hoc est in Verbo suo Deus caelum et terram fecit, sicut et Evangelista Iohannes in initio Evangelii suo ait."

      The Gospel of John provides the principal biblical discussion of the Verbum Dei as the true light, giving Verbum Dei and Filius Dei as names of God, as well as Via, Veritas, and Vita; the first epistle of John provides two other equally famous names: Deus charitas est and Deus lux est (1 John 4:7-8).

44. Cf. the Pseudo-Dionysius's De divinis nominibus, chap. 9: "motus Dei immobilis" (Aquinas 1950 315).

45. Aristotle had defined time as "the measure of motion with respect to before and after" and had pointed out that motion, time, and space are notions that all imply each other ( Physics 3.1). These positions were widely adopted in the Middle Ages; Augustine alludes to them (e.g., Confessions 11.23), and Aqui- soft

      nas regularly cites them (e.g., 1875 22:381-383; cf. Summa theologica 1a, quaest. 66, art. 4).

46. In this light, sixty-six as the number of lines in the poem, and six as the number of appearances of the dominant rhyme-word in each stanza, probably are to be associated with the traditional numerological identification of six as the number of the created world, as Petrarch seems to have understood; see Durling 1976 17-18. See also above, Chapter 3, pp. 122-126, and Appendix 2. In this connection, the number twelve is almost certainly associated with the months of the year, and five with the planets other than sun and moon.

47. Bloch (1977 176-189) argues that the very nature of the canso is an appeal for judgment, usually from the lady as judge, against the lauzengier. Dante has transposed the appeal, making it one against the lady. See also Bloch 1977 144-160.

48. "Amor, tu vedi ben" has several points of similarity with the canzone "Amor, che movi tua vertù da cielo" (usually associated with the pargoletta poems; mentioned twice in the De vulgari eloquentia, first [2.v.4] as an instance of the nobility of a hendecasyllable opening a canzone, later [2.xi.7] as having pedes longer than the sirma ). The parallel between the openings of the two poems ( Amor, followed by a pronoun and a second-person singular verb in the present tense) is symptomatic of a larger and more important parallel: both poems are extended apostrophes, prayers to Love to change the lady's heart, arranged in an overtly argumentative structure that is punctuated by the vocatives (in "Amor, che movi": "Amor, che movi . . . tu cacci . . . Dunque, segnor . . , guarda . . ."). In both poems, both the lover's love and the lady's beauty are represented as instances of the radiation of the cosmic principle of love ("Amor, che movi": "Feremi ne lo cor sempre tua luce," 16; and "perché nel suo venir li raggi tuoi, / con li quai mi risplende, / saliron tutti ne li occhi suoi," 28-30). But "Amor, che movi," extremely Guinizellian in metaphorics and tone, avoids the strong identification of Amor with the superessential Light that we find in "Amor, tu vedi ben"; only lines 1-2 clearly allude to it ("Amor, che movi tua vertù da cielo / come 'l sol lo splendore"). For the possible connections of this poem and "Io sento sì d'Amor la gran possanza" with the petrose, see Pernicone 1970a, 1970b.

      Another poem with insistent apostrophe of Amore is the much later canzone montanina "Amor, da che convien pur ch'io mi doglia" (see lines 1, 46, and 61), though this one is not argumentative but, instead, basically narrative in structure.

49. The name Amore occurs once in each of the first three petrose ("Io son venuto," 50; "Al poco giorno," 16; "Amor, tu vedi ben," 1), and four times in "Così nel mio parlar" (lines 32, 37, 64, 72), where of course the personification becomes an actor in the internal drama (lines 35-52). See pp. 179-185.

50. This process, whereby the god of love is replaced by-or gradually identified as-Christ, has an important parallel in the Vita nuova, where the figure of Love, originally a "segnore di pauroso aspetto" (chap. 3) and, until chapter 12, largely assimilated to the medieval Cupid, gradually blends into something close to the figure of Christ. In the culminating moment, Love himself draws an continue

      analogy between the pair Giovanna-Beatrice and the pair John the Baptist—Christ (Dante 1984 167-169):

parve che Amore mi parlasse nel cuore, e dicesse: "Quella prima è nominata Primavera solo per questa venuta d'oggi; ché io mossi lo imponitore del nome a chiamarla così Primavera, cioè prima verrà lo die che Beatrice si mosterrà dopo la imaginazione del suo fedele. E se anche vógli considerare lo primo nome suo, tanto è quanto a dire 'prima verrà,' però che lo suo nome Giovanna è da quello Giovanni lo quale precedette la verace luce, dicendo: 'Ego vox clamantis in deserto: parate viam Domini."' Ed anche mi parve che mi dicesse, dopo, queste parole: "E chi volesse sottilmente considerare, quella Beatrice chiamerebbe Amore, per molta simiglianza che ha meco."

      The passage is evasive. Although it explicitly draws the parallel Giovanna-John the Baptist, identifying precedence as the tertium comparationis, it leaves implicit the parallel Beatrice-verace luce. Likewise, the final sentence does not fully state the analogy Beatrice-Christ; rather, it asserts the similarity between Beatrice and the Amore whose identity is in question. It is immediately after this chapter that Dante gives his misleading definition of love as "uno accidente in substantia," after which the figure Amore entirely disappears from the book (cf. Singleton 1949 73-75, 112-114).

51. Since the poem as a whole is thus identified as a prayer to Christ, it implies that the speaker has not only the right to woo the lady but also a serious claim to her love; see Introduction, pp. 46-47.

52. This is true, of course, in a very general sense; none of the technical terminology of emanationism is present, except for raggio.

53. See above, note 6. Albertus Magnus writes:

Sicut lumen, quod est causa pulchri, per emissionem radiorum a causa efficit omnia luminosa, ita etiam secundum immisionem fulgoris a fonte pulcherrimi omnia pulchritudine participant.
(on De divinis nominibus 4; cited in De Bruyne 1946 3.185; emphasis added)

Just as the light, which is the cause of the beautiful, by the emission of rays from the source [the sun] makes everything luminous, so according to their reception of radiance from the fountain of the most beautiful all things participate in beauty.

      The passage quoted in note 6 above continues:

      . . .  et est principium omnium pulchrum, sicut effectiva causa, et movens tota, et continens amore propriae pulchritudinis, et finis omnium, sicut finalis causa (etenim pulchri causa omnia fiunt), et exemplaris, quoniam secundum ipsum cuncta determinantur, propter quod et idem est bono pulchrum quoniam bonum et pulchrum secundum omnem causam cuncta desiderant, et non est aliquid existentium quod non participet pulchro et bono. break

. . . and the beautiful is the beginning of all things, as their effective cause and mover, containing them within the love of its own beauty, as their final cause (for all things are made for the sake of beauty), and their formal cause, because all things are determined according to it, so that the beautiful is the same as the good, since all things desire the good and the beautiful in every cause, and there is nothing among existing things that does not participate in the beautiful and the good.

      De Bruyne (3: 266) quotes a characteristic comment from Albert's follower Ulrich of Strasburg:

Est etiam causa finalis, quia cum forma a perfectibili desideretur in quantum est perfectio, et haec perfectionis natura non est in forma nisi similitudo Lucis increatae, quae similitudo est pulchritudo rerum, patet quod forma desideratur et intenditur in quantum est bonum et etaim pulchrum. Et sic divina pulchritudo in se vel in sua similitudine est finis alliciens omne desiderium.
(emphasis added)

He is the final cause [of beauty], too, because as form is desired by the perfectible in so far as it is its perfection, and since the nature of this perfection in the form is nothing other than a likeness of the uncreated Light, it is clear that form is desired and intended in so far as it is both good and beautiful. And so the divine beauty, in itself or in what resembles it, is the goal that beckons to every desire.

54. It is especially through the idea of light as unifying and congregating ("congregating them to the one, true, clear, uniform cognition, and filling them with the one unifying light," De divinis nominibus 4.5.106-107) that the Pseudo-Dionysius (4.14.178) makes the transition to his discussion of love as a name of God, through a passage that returns to the idea of the Good as cause, container, and goal of all motion, from the natural harmonies of the universe to the mystical ecstasy of the saints (p. 146):

. . . sicut quidam aeternus cyclus, propter bonum ex bono in bono et ad bonum, in non errante convolutione circumambulans et in eodem et secundum idem et procedens et manens semper et restitutus.

. . . like a certain eternal cycle, because of the Good out of the Good in the Good to the Good circulating with a not errant circling, and in the Same and according to the Same both proceeding and remaining always and restored.

      See Chapter 5, note 99.

55. See Chapter 1, pp. 55-62.

56. Convivio 2.14.13: "dal cominciamento del mondo poco più de la sesta parte è volto; e noi siamo già ne l'ultima etade del secolo, e attendemo veracemente la consummazione del celestiale movimento" (Dante 1964); cf. Nardi 1949 316-317; Nardi 1967a 164. See also Litt 1963 242-243.

57. See Burke 1961 33-38, 163-171. The term petra, of course, in one of its uses, stands in this poem for the other extreme; it is thus striking, in connection continue

      with this poem, that in discussing the names of God, Aquinas repeatedly uses the term lapis as an example of various aspects of the activity of naming. One of the most interesting instances is as follows:

In significatione nominum aliud est quandoque a quo imponitur nomen ad significandum, et aliud ad quod significandum nomen imponitur, sicut hoc nomen lapis imponitur ab eo quod laedit pedem, non tamen imponitur ad hoc significandum quod significat laedens pedem, sed ad significandam quamdam speciem corporum; alioquin omne laedens pedem esset lapis.
( Summa theologica Ia, quaest. 13, art. 2)

In the way names mean it often happens that there is a difference between the thing the name is taken from in order to signify, and the thing which the name is to signify, as the term lapis (stone) derives from harming the foot, but it is not used to order to signify "harming the foot" but to denote a certain class of bodies; otherwise everything that harms the foot would be a stone.

      Aquinas is drawing on Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum liber 16.3.1: "Lapis a terra tanquam densior, etiam vulgo discernitur. Lapis autem dictus, quod laedat pedem." When in stanza 2 of "Amor, tu vedi ben" Dante writes:

      he is engaging in etymological play; the "petra che t'avesse innoiato" must be a stone in the way. But "porto nascoso il colpo de la petra" also preserves the idea of the etymon of lapis: laedens, "harmful."

58. We see a reflection here and in the Vita nuova of Aquinas's clarification of the Nominalist-Realist debate on the names of God in terms of a theory of analogical terms founded on the analogy of being, and specifically on the analogy of proportion with respect to potency and act (thus a change in emphasis from formalism to efficient cause ); see Montagnes 1963 esp. 81-96.

59. See Introduction, pp. 11-18, and Chapter 1, p. 66-68.

60. It is tempting to think that Dante had been struck by Albertus Magnus's phrase oculo solis, which does not appear in the sources of the De mineralibus, particularly because of the connection with the opening of the poem: "Amor [ = sol iustitiae ], tu vedi." We have noted, as important for helping to establish the analogy between the poem and the eye, the parallel between "lo tuo raggio che al volto mi luce" and "la novità che per tua forma luce," the first and last appearances of luce in the poem, both verbs. La novità is made parallel with lo tuo raggio. If we read novità with an eye to the meaning Dante assigns to the term novo in the Vita nuova (i.e., miracle), we may see in the last line of the poem that what Dante hopes is shining through its form is something he continue

1. Fenzi (1966 305) quotes Momigliano's attack on the poem's "excesses." The poem's importance to contemporaries is suggested by Boccaccio's transcription of it in the first place in his copies of Dante's canzoni and his allusion to it in Decameron 5.8; see below, note 3. For balanced recent appreciation, see Dante 1967 2:273-275. Vallone 1974 is especially valuable for citations of verbal parallels (mostly in secondary stilnovisti like Lapo and Cino) and insight into the tormented psychology of the speaker; di Girolamo 1976 emphasizes the metaphorical functions, inclusive of displaced sexual reference, of Dante's language.

2. But see Vallone 1974 265-266, 269; and di Girolamo 1976 27, who contradict Contini here. Regan (1982) offers insights but seems not to know Dronke. Comens (1986) reads the petrose as a set of dramatic monologues depicting the speaker's surrender to sexual concupiscence and wrath; his views require forcing of the text (e.g., 164, 167, 168, 173, 179) and neglect the formal complexities of the poems (as well as much of the bibliography on them); his article renders extreme the "theological" notion that the experience recorded in the petrose is to be viewed as exclusively negative. A similar logic would require us to condone continue

      without question all forms of anger in the Commedia on the grounds of their "theological" foundation.

3. For Boccaccio's copies of Dante's canzoni, see Dante 1946 288-291; Pernicone 1970C; and Pernicone 1973b 952. Boccaccio's placing of the petrose as first and central is, however, striking; the last poem in Boccaccio's order is "E' m'incresce di me sì duramente" (67), which has many features in common with "Così nel mio parlar"; it is thus arguable that Boccaccio thought of the petrose and related poems as the most important in Dante's stravaganti.

4. The antithesis of rime aspre and dolci rime is spelled out in the commentary to "Le dolci rime" in Conviio 4.2.11-13. See also Dante 1946 165.

5. Boyde (1971 201) notes the ambiguous syntax of "questa bella petra, / la quale ognora impetra / maggior durezza e più natura cruda" (2-4). If la quale is object, then impetra is a metaphorical verb meaning "petrifies"; but if durezza is object, then the verb means "obtains." See also Dante 1946 167; and Vallone 1974 238.

6. The text of the canzone has the lady wearing the jasper ("si veste d'un diaspro," 3), suggesting that she displays it prominently on her brow or upper body. Dante was of course familiar with jasper from the description of the twelve stones, standing for the twelve tribes of Israel, in Aaron's breastplate in Exodus (28:6-21). In Martianus Capella 1.75, the sun wears a crown with twelve stones, among which are jasper and heliotrope. The lady's jasper is usually glossed as a reference to her chastity, citing the lapidary of Marbod of Rennes (see Dante 1946 168); see PL 171:1743:

Caste gestatus fugat et febres, et hydropem 
appositusque juvat mulierem parturientem. 
Et tutamentum portanti creditur esse; 
Nam consecratus gratum facit atque potentem, 
Et sicut perhibent, phantasmata noxia pellit.

      Marbod (as well as Isidore, Hrabanus, etc.) merely notes that the jasper is most effective against fever when borne by a chaste person. Other attributes of the stone include protection from harm, conferral of charm and strength, and the repulsion of harmful fantasies; these other associations may be more specifically relevant to "Così nel mio parlar." The petra is protected not only from Love's arrows but also from the corrosive thoughts of love that torture the speaker; the poem itself would be the erotic fantasy aimed at her hitherto impenetrable armor. Some lapidaries also observe that jasper was more effective when carved with the figure of an armed man (identified often as Mars) or a virgin wearing a stole (probably Pallas with the aegis, bearer of the Gorgon); see Evans 1922 206: "sculpere oportet in eo [iaspide] martem armatum aut virginem stolatam cum veste circumfusa tenentem laurum." Such associations suggest a derivation of the military themes of the canzone from the key rhyme aspro / diaspro and hint at the submerged presence of the Medusa.

7. See above, pp. 138-139, and Appendix 1, pp. 261-263. Foster and Boyde (Dante 1967 2:273-275) offer excellent commentary. break

8. In addition to De vulgari eloquentia 2.vii.6 (on the tempering of harsh and smooth words: "Omativa vero dicimus omnia polisillaba [yrsuta] que, mixta cum pexis, pulcram faciunt armoniam compaginis") and 2.xiii.13 ("nam lenium asperorumque rithimorum mixtura ipsa tragedia nitescit"), Dante uses the metaphor of temperament in discussing the dialect of the Bolognese (1.xv.5, "Si ergo bononienses utrinque accipiunt, ut dictum est, rationabile videtur esse quod eorum locutio per commixtionem oppositorum ut dictum est ad laudabilem suavitatem remaneant temperata"). Mengaldo here cites Boethius's Institutio arithmetica (1867 2.32): "non sine causa dictum est, omnia, quae ex contrariis consisterent, armonia quadam coniungi atque componi. Est enim armonia plurimorum adunatio et dissidentium consensio."

9. Aquinas, following Aristotle, refutes the idea that the soul is a harmony or temperament ( Summa contra gentiles 2.63-64). The exploration of the limits of the stanzaic habitudo, the mixture of rhymes ( rithimorum relatio ), and the weaving of hendecasyllables and heptasyllables ( contextum carminum ) ( De vulgari eloquentia 2.xi.I), is what results in the determinate complexion or temperament of each canzone stanza ("cantio est coniugatio stantiarum," 2.ix.I); "possumus . . . dicere stantiam esse sub certo cantu et habitudine limitatam carminum et syllabarum compagem," 2.ix.6). The recurrence of metaphors like compages, mixtura, coniugatio, and armonia means that Dante is drawing on the idea of a substance (a material body, a living creature, an artificial product) as a complexio or temperament of primary elements. The analogy between the canzone and the body is based finally on their common status as composites of matter and form—sententia and habitudo in the poem, matter and temperament or complexion in the body. Both are thus susceptible of harmony and discord: in an analogy that goes back to Hippocrates, the body's health is a harmony of humors or qualities, while the canzone, as we noted of Dante's terminology, may be thought of as a whole series of harmonies: of words and music, of words in meter, of harsh and smooth rhymes, of the parts of the stanza ( armoniam compaginis ). As Monterosso (1970a 381) observes, Dante's immediate model when he discusses harmony is the harmony of the proportions of the physical body "Quella cosa dice l'uomo essere bella cui le parti debitamente si rispondono, per che de la loro armonia resulta piacimento. Onde pare l'uomo essere bello, quando le sue membra debitamente si rispondono, e dicemo bello lo canto, quando le voci di quello, secondo debito de l'arte, sono intra sé rispondenti" ( Convivio 1.5.13). See Spitzer 1963.

10. De vulgari eloquentia 2.vii (see Appendix 4 for translation). We follow Dante 1967 2:275, in the determination of dolci and aspre syllables found within the rhyme: "ignoring . . . all consonants except those which close the penultimate syllable, and open the final syllable." For convenience, we summarize here Foster and Boyde's explanation of verbal harshness, drawn from De vulgari eloquentia 2.vii: "Asperitas is found in words which are aspirated (his example is 'honore'), which have fewer than two or more than three syllables, which are stressed on the final syllable, or which have certain consonant groups-namely double z or double x, or consonant groups made up of two liquids or a liquid followed by a mute" (p. 275). break

11. Di Girolamo (1976 19) notes: "si notino pure le poche rime facili, che coincidono con i rari momenti di serenità e di sogno: come la rima baciata face :pace, che conclude l'ultima stanza, o come dora:allora."

12. A similar opposition distinguishes the octave of Dante's sonnet "Com' più vi fere Amor co' suoi vincastri" (Dante 1946 51-52), marked by harsh and rare rhymes, from the sestet, where the rhymes are dolci—as Contini points out.

13. Foster and Boyde (Dante 1967 2:274) note that "in short, D goes far beyond the simple mixture of vocabula pexa and vocabula yrsuta that he recommends in De vulgari eloquentia II.vii.6," but add, "the poem is experimental, and it is not evidence of a break with traditional poetics: rather, it is the exception that proves the rule." Vallone (1974 269), however, thinks "Così" and the Vita nuova the principal lyric moments on the way to the Commedia.

14. Guittone d'Arezzo (cited in Dante 1979a 85): "Credo savete ben, messer Onesto / che proceder dal fatto il nome dia"; and Ubertino to Guittone: "Se'l nome deve seguitar lo fatto."

15. See Consolatio 3.pr. 11: "Quod si rationes quoque non extra petitas sed intra rei quam tractabamus ambitum collocatas agitavimus, nihil est quod admirere, cum Platone sanciente didiceris cognatos de quibus loquuntur rebus oportere esse sermones." Boethius refers to Timaeus 29b. Alain of Lille De planctu naturae pr. 4 (Häring 1978 839) makes the relevant point that sometimes discourses must be ugly in order to accommodate "deformed" subjects: "Sed tamen aliquando, ut superius libavimus, quia rebus de quibus loquimur cognatos oportet esse sermones, rerum informitati locutionis debet deformitas conformari" (emphasis added).

16. See Chapter 6, pp. 217-223.

17. See Inferno 32.1-12. Dante knew the story of Amphion from many sources, including Ovid, Statius, and Brunetto Latini.

18. "Hinc aestimo et Orphei vel Amphionis fabulam, quorum alter animalia ratione carentia, alter saxa quoque trahere cantibus ferebantur, sumpsisse principium, quia primi forte gentes vel sine rationis cultu barbaras, vel saxi instar nullo affectu molles, ad sensum voluptatis canendo traxerunt" (Macrobius 1970a 105 [ Commentarium 2.3.8]). Just above, Macrobius opines that none is so merciless or hard of heart ("nullum sit tam immite, tam asperum pectus" ) that he cannot be moved by music, which is a memory of the music known in heaven ("quia in corpus defert memoriam musicae cuius in caelo fuit conscia"). Macrobius's other example is Orpheus, whose skill in moving rocks and trees is remembered by Dante in the Convivio 2.1.3; there, too, the rocks and stones moved by Orpheus are allegorized as cruel listeners: "che vuol dire che lo savio uomo con lo strumento de la sua voce fa[r]ia mansuescere e umiliare li crudeli cuori."

19. "Musica non modo speculationi, verum etiam moralitati coniuncta. . . . Nulla omnino . . .  aetas quae a cantilenae dulcis delectatione seiuncta sit. . . . Lascivus quippe animus, vel ipse lascivioribus delectatur modis vel saepe eosdem audiens cito emollitur, ac frangitur. Rursus asperior mens vel incitatioribus gaudet, vel incitatioribus asperatur . . . . Nulla enim magis ad animum disciplinis via, quam auribus patet. Cum ergo per eas rhythmi modique ad animum usque descenderint, dubitari non potest quin aequo modo mentem atque ipsa continue

      sunt efficiant atque conforment. Id vero etiam intelligi in gentibus potest. Nam quae asperiores sunt Getarum, durioribus delectantur modis. Quae vero mansuetae, mediocribus" ( De musica institutione 1.1; quoted in Monterosso 1971 1062).

20. Dante could have known of the specifically cathartic effects of music from Aristotle's discussion of the function of music in education in the eighth book of the Politics.

21. "Quia percussus aer ipso interventu ictus vim de se fragoris emittit, ipsa cogente natura ut in sonum desinat duorum corporum violenta conlisio. sed is sonus, qui ex qualicumque aeris ictu nascitur, aut dulce quiddam in aures et musicum defert, aut ineptum et asperum personat. nam si ictum observatio numerorum certa moderetur, compositum sibique consentiens modulamen educitur: at cum increpat tumultuaria et nullis modis gubernata conlisio, fragor turbidus et inconditus offendit auditum" (Macrobius 1970a 96).

22. See Macrobius 1970a 99: "in Timaeo suo mundi animam per istorum numerorum contextionem ineffabili providentia dei fabricatoris instituit"; p. 101: "Timaeus igitur Platonis in fabricanda mundi anima consilium divinitatis enuntians ait illam per hos numeros fuisse contextam, qui et a pari et ab impari cybum id est perfectionem soliditatis efficiunt"; pp. 102-103: "ergo mundi anima, quae ad motum hoc quod videmus universitatis corpus impellit, contexta numeris musicam de se creantibus concinentiam necesse est ut sonos musicos de motu quem proprio impulso praestat efficiat . . . ait enim Plato, ut supra rettulimus, auctorem animae deum post numerorum inter se imparium contextionem hemioliis epitritis et epogdois et limmate hiantia intervalle supplesse."

23. See De vulgari eloquentia 2.xii.1: "Est etiam, ut superius dictum est, habitudo quedam quam carmina contexendo considerare debemus"; 2.xii.3: "Horum prorsus, cum tragice poetari conamur, endecasillabum propter quandam excellentiam in contextu vincendi privilegium promeretur. Nam quedam stantia est que solis endicasillabis gaudet esse contexta, ut illa Guidonis de Florentia ['Donna mi prega'] et etiam nos dicimus ['Donne ch'avete']." See also 2.12.4, 5, 7, and 9; also 2.13.5, 7.

24. Alain of Lille presents the reconciliation of the discordant elements in the kind of anthropomorphic terms that we suggest are reversed in the case of "Così": that is, the reconciliation of petra and speaker has something in it of the joining of discordant elements. See Alain Deplanctu naturae pr. 4 (Häring 1978 840): "Deus igitur mundiali palatio varias rerum species ascribendo quas, discrepantium generum litigio disparatas, legitimi ordinis congruentia temperavit, leges indidit, sanctionibus alligavit. Sicque res generum oppositione contrarias, inter quas locus ab oppositis locum posuerat, cuiusdam reciproce habitudinis relativis osculis federando in amicicie pacem litem repugnantie commutavit. Subtilibus igitur invisibilis iuncture cathenis concordantibus universis ad unitatem pluralitas, ad idemptitatem diversitas, ad consonantiam dissonantia, ad concordiam discordia, unione pacifica remeavit."

25. Matthew ofVendôme (Faral 1924 154) writes: "Ex superficiali ornatu verborum elegantia est in versibus . . . . Siquidem in hoc articulo versificatorem oportet esse expeditum, ne ex penuria ornatus hirsuta verborum aggregatio in continue

      metro videatur mendicare: sed, quadam similitudine sumpta a rebus materiatis, sicut de lana caprina et de panniculis inveteratis nemo festivum potest contexere indumentum . . . similiter in versibus." And Geoffroy de Vinsauf (Faral 1924 254):

26. Perugi (1978 77) argues that Dante's verse echoes Arnaut's "aesplan e daura." If so, the alteration of aesplan to increspa supports our point: as the lady's coiffeur, Love curls and roughens the surface of her hair, makes it, technically, reburrus (and see Mengaldo's note on this word, quoting Uguccione da Pisa: "Reburrus.a.um, hispidus, recalvus, renudatus, discoopertus, scilicet cuius primi et anteriores capilli altius ceteris horrescunt" [Dante 1979a 191]).

27. Combing or adorning hair is a specific image for "grooming" words in Geoffroy de Vinsauf Doctrina de arte versificandi 2.3.7 (Faral 1924): "in hoc adjectivo perpexa, per pexionem designamus ornatum, sicut cum dicitur 'Verba habes perpexa,' id est ornata"; 2.3.21: "sicut homo . . . quando vult pulchriores reddere capillos, comit vel pectit eos, similiter dicitur comere vel pectere verba, quando reddit pulchra."

28. Vallone (1974 248) is especially good on the paradoxical final moments of the poem, where sardonic parody and a mystical serenity overlap.

29. Contini (Dante 1946 157) speaks of an alternation of objective and subjective moments.

30. For the aggressive viso of the lady, see Dante's canzone "E' m'incresce di me si duramente" (Dante 1946 62), where the lady's penetrating sight is a recurring topic: "Entro'n quel cor che i belli occhi feriro" (7); "lor vittoriosa vista" (22); "alza li occhi micidiali e grida" (49); "per una luce che nel cor percosse" (65); "lo mirare intento ch'ella fece" (78). "E'm'incresce di me" alludes to the innamoramento of the Vita nuova, and as Fenzi (1966 271) has pointed out, it is closely related to "Così nel mio parlar." For the lady's glance as an arrow, see note 99.

31. In "E'm'incresce di me," the speaker is similarly impeded in his operations: "Che a tutte mie virtù fu posto un freno / subitamente, sì ch'io caddi in terra, / per una luce che nel cuor percosse" (63-65). Contini (Dante 1946 168) and most editors read vertù in verse 34 as referring to the power of the denti d'Amor that corrode the pensier, but Peter Boyde (1971 201) observes that the phrase is ambiguous; Foster and Boyde (Dante 1967 2:279) provide a more convincing case for taking pensier as the subject of bruca than they do for their preferred solution: "Metaphorically, Death is devouring D's senses with Love's continue

      teeth; in somewhat plainer language ( cioè ), the tormenting obsession with his beloved ( pensier ) is corroding the power of his senses and slowing down their operation, thus leading him to his death which, obviously, occurs when their operation finally ceases." Vallone (1976 252) notes that " Tre donne," 47-48 ("ivi dovel'l gran lume / toglie a la terra del vinco la fronda"), is similarly ambiguous.

32. Vallone (1976 247) notes: " Si pongono da una parte tre modi personali di essere ( mia mente, mio mal, m'affonda ) e di fronte tre elementi della realtà esterna ( fronda, onda, rima )."

33. The prohibition on speaking the lady's name derives from the "rules" of Courtly Love; see the thirteenth rule of Andreas Capellanus (1972 310: "Amor raro consuevit durare vulgatus"). In chapter 5 of the Vita nuova, Love prescribes elaborate schermi for the protagonist so that his love for Beatrice may be secret; in "Lo doloroso amor" (Dante 1946-68), the speaker has borne his pain secretly ("l'ho portato nascosto," 7; Contini's note is "il soverchio dolore s' oppone alla discrezione cavalleresca").

34. Vallone (1976 257) makes the link—a phonosymbolic one—of strida with the previous corrosion of the lover's faulties: "il verbo strida sembra provocato dall' attrito di quei molti e confusi residui, generati dal lavorio della lima e dal rodio del cuore a scorza a scorza."

35. " La lotta, come sempre nei grandi poeti intimisti, si sposta all' interno. Per non cedere a petra occorre anche vincere i sentimenti dell' animo, di qui sradicarla" (Vallone 1976 244). But Vallone overlooks the extent to which the threat comes from the lover himself.

36. Dante's concern with inversion in "Così", as in all the petrose, may owe a debt to Raimbaut d' Aurenga's masterpiece, "Ar resplan la Flors enversa" (Pattison 1952 199), which is based on a comples series of inversions —thematic, imagistic, formal, linguistic—worked out in six stanzas. Raimbaut's techniqe of rim derivatiu is often considered a forerunner of the sestina (De Riquer 1975 1:445), and his use of rhyme-words and derivative rhyme makes " Ar resplan" a possible predecessor of the petrose . Although Dante never mentions. Raimbaut, we suggest that Raimbaut's poem has influenced " Così" in the following ways: in the perverso / riverso / verso rhyme, which reflects Raimbaut's use of enversa/ enverse as the initial rhymes of each stanza (and as the seminal idea of the poem); int he speaker's reference to the lady's braids as whips ("che son per me scudiscio e ferza"), which echoes Raimbaut's description of his lady's eyes as whips ("Vostre belh huelh mi son giscle"); and in the speaker's desire that his poem strike the lady like an arrow ("dàlle per lo cor d'una saetta"), which echoes Raimbaut's desire that his poem be so that it will move the lady (" A midons lo chant e.1 siscle / Clar, qu'el cor l'en introl giscle"), a verse that also might anticipate " Amor, tu vedi ben,"52 ("entrale in core omai"). Moreover, Raimbaut's idea that his opem is itelf in some sense (or senses) reversed ("Mos vers an, qu'aissi l'enverse" —with a suggestive duplication of vers ) may be behind Dante's extraordinarily self-conscious and intense exploration of forms of inversion in "Così" and the rest of the petrose . For the hypothesis that "Ar resplan" is an immediate precedent for "Lo ferm voler," see Roncaglia 181 29-31.

37. The augustinian tag is quoted by Albertus Magnus in his De homine, continue

      quaest. 67, art. 1: "bellum enim semper est propter quietem et pacem, ut dicit Augustinus" (cited in Shaw 1948 35).

38. Fenzi (1966 271) notes, "Il ritmo che poi aumenta in crescendo, sempre più fitto, sempre più marcato."

39. Dante uses pondus in the De vulgari eloquentia 2.v.3 when speaking of the relative "weights" of verses—eleven-syllable lines being the weightiest of all. Settenarii are permitted in a canzone in any number so long as they do not outweigh the eleven-syllable lines; Dante suggests one, two, three, four, or five (Dante 1979a 170). In "Così" Dante uses three—the mean.

40. A case in point is the middle of stanza 1, where the sequence of assonant vowels gives an effect of internal rhyme: "perch' ella s'arretra, / non esce di far etra / sa etta " (6-8).

41. "Ne risulta che dal sesto verso in giù non s'hanno se non rime baciate, con un effetto d'insistenza incalzante, spezialmente in presenza dei settenari" (Dante 1946 165). "Doglia mi reca," which has six rime baciate after the piedi (counting the concatenatio ), is the nearest rival; but the series is interrupted: ABbCdACcBeEffGgHIiiHH.

42. Again, in a manner unique among Dante's canzoni. "Donne ch'avete," the first canzone of the Vita nuova, is a near miss: its stanzas are composed entirely of eleven-syllable lines and therefore perfectly symmetrical with respect to the pondus of the verses, but they have an even number of lines (fourteen) and therefore no central verse.

43. There are several forms of licentia to which Dante refers: of stanzaic habitudo ( De vulgari eloquentia 2.x.5), of verse lengths (2.xii.5), of rhymes (2.xiii.4); but they must be justified by authoritative precedent (2.x.5). As we suggested earlier, Dante's own authority is sufficient to justify the license of his choice; thus, the principle by which Dante fashions the stanza of "Così" is closely akin to that which justifies the use of the aspro diction.

44. Descort is defined in the late Provençal Leys d'Amors: "Descortz es dictatz mot divers; e pot haver aytantas coblas coma vers, so's a ssaber de v a x, las quals coblas devon esser singulars, dezacordablas e variablas en acort, en so et en lengatges. E devon esser totas d'un compas o de divers. E dei tractar d'amors o de lauzors o per maniera de rancura: 'quar midons no mi ayma ayssi cum sol', o de tot aysso essems, qui.s vol" (Hill and Bergin 1973 1: 265). "Così" has regular stanzas and only one language, but it does treat of Love "per maniera de rancura." Examples in Dante's tradition are the multilingual descort of Raimbaut de Vaqueiras ("vuelh un descort comensar / d'amor, per qu'ieu vauc aratges / quar ma domna.m sol amar, / mas camiatz l'es sos coratges, / per qu'ieu vuelh dezacordar / los motz, e.ls sos e.ls lenguatges"; cited in Spitzer 1963 90); Giacomo da Lentini's "Dal core mi vene" (Contini 1960 1: 68); Bonagiunta da Lucca's "Or veo la rivera" and "Ai faux ris," attributed to Dante (1946 240). This last instance is a discordo plurilingue, with numerous features reminiscent of the petrose, from the gravis mea spina (42) that recalls the crudele spina of "Io son venuto" (49), as Scherillo and Crescini observe (Dante 1946 241), to the characterization of the donna as having a "cor di ghiaccio / et tant d'aspresse" (!) (27-28). The dardi and stocchi (17) are of course generic for a canzone about cruel love. It continue

      is significant in connection with Raimbaut's poem (whose self-definition has obviously influenced that of the Leys ) that the writing of descortz is presented as willful: "Vuelh dezacordar los sos"; cf. "Voglio esser aspro." Marshall (1981) points out that a small number of isostrophic descortz in Provençal have survived; see also, for the Italian discordo, Russell 1982 59-71.

45. A comparison with "Io son venuto" is instructive here. In that canzone the dissonance of logical and formal units is internal to the stanza; "Così" is distinguished rather by the relation between stanzas, which is fully manifested only over the whole span of the poem. The effect of overlapping between the stanzas of "Così" applies to the parts of the stanza as well: the two pedes can be seen as two sirmata that overlap, the fifth verse in each stanza being taken twice. This notion is less fanciful if we note that lines 5-9 of each stanza end with a couplet, just as the sirma does.

46. There is no comparable overlapping in Dante's other lyric poems. Boyde (1971 243) claims that the linking of stanzas in "Così" is a version of the Provençal technique, similar to what Dante does in "Li occhi dolenti" ( Vita Nuova, chap. 31). But he underestimates the extent to which consecutive sirma and pedes are permeated by links; compare "E'm'incresce di me," a poem closely related to our canzone, where the technique remains very close to that of coblas capfinidas (and see Boyde 1971 239).

47. For the poem's center as heart or bosom, see Regan 1982 140. As Fenzi (1966 267) has noted, the center of the poem is correlated to the attack on the speaker's heart: the center of the body and the formal center of the text coincide, with consequences for interpretation. See Chapter 4, pp. 143-144.

48. Negatives in initial position: verses 7, 10, 14, 15; medial, verses 9, 13, 21, 24, 29, 31; final, verse 39. There is therefore a development, with negatives migrating from initial to final position, where the instance is a substantive (a rhetorical conversio of negare ).

49. In stanza 5, six instances ( vedesse, sarebbe, griderei, farei, metterei, piacerei ); in stanza 6, seven ( avessi, passerei, sarei, farei, vendicherei, guarderei, renderei ). This section of the poem echoes the techniques of the plazer, the Provençal genre used for wishful thinking, of which the most famous example in Italian is Cecco Angiolieri's sonnet "S'i'fosse fuoco, arderei'l mondo" (Contini 1960 2:377). For Dante's own essay in the genre, "Guido, io vorrei che tu e Lapo ed io," see Dante 1946 34-36.

50. On anaphora and antistrophe, see Chapter 2, note 99.

51. "The canzone which he is now sending is his revenge: it can become the arrow thrust in the woman's heart, the one thing that may shatter her defences" (Dronke 1968 166). And see di Girolamo 1976 21: "La situazione cortese della poesia come panegirico della dama è qui completamente ribaltata: il testo diviene esso stesso strumento di vendetta (ultimo vocabolo e ultima rima della canzone), ed è in grado da trafiggere (a freddo, e fuori dall'allucinazione della quinta stanza) il cuore di madonna." Describing words as arrows is of course a topos; see Chapter 5, pp. 181-182. break

52. Di Girolamo (1976 27) notes: "É quindi alla metafora che è affidato il messaggio centrale della canzone."

53. For the guises of Love in the Vita nuova, see Chapter 4, note 50; and Singleton 1949 74-77.

54. Use of the familiar pronoun probably excludes the petra from consideration as the lima, as Dante will use the honorific form voi in verse 61. It is worth remembering, however, that at Paradiso 31.81 Dante shifts to the familiar in his farewell words to Beatrice, after using the respectful voi for thirty-five cantos.

55. For the distinction of love as substance and accident, see the Vita nuova 25.11 (Dante 1980 164), and our remarks, pp. 390-391.

56. For this topos of the lyric tradition, see Guittone d'Arezzo, "Ahi, Deo, che dolorosa," 28: "Amore quanto a mor te vale a dire" (Contini 1960 2:193); and Inferno 5.106: "Amor condusse noi ad un A MOR te." But amor and mors are also found in Aeneid 4, linked to the name of Dido; see 4.171: "nec iam furtivum Dido meditatur amorem"; 4.291-292: "sese interea, quando optima Dido / nesciat et tantos rumpi non speret amores"; and 4.450-451: "Tum vero infelix fatis exterrita Dido / mortem orat."

57. "Con la violentissima 'scinderatio' . . . . fra E' e Amore, rifà senza dubbio il verso all'accesissimo incipit di 7.1-2, 'Anc eu no l'ac, mas ela m'a / tostemps en son poder Amors"' (Perugi 1978 77).

58. In the Roman de la rose, the ceremony of Amanz's feudal homage to Amor (in many respects a model for subsequent representations of this event, inclusive of stilnuovo lyric) includes the lover's insistence that Love treat him fairly, as a loyal vassal ought to be treated:

Sire, fis je, grant talent é 
de fee vostre volenté; 
mes mon servise recevez 
en gre, foi que vous me devez. 
Nou di pas por recreandise, 
que point ne dot vostre servise, 
mes sergenz en vain se travaille 
de fee servise qui valle, 
se li servise n'atalante 
au seignor cui l'en presente. 
             (2013-22).

59. See Cavalcanti's famous canzone "Donna mi prega" (Contini 1960 2: 524-525).

60. All three of these terms recur in the Commedia applied to similar instruments: in Purgatorio 16.47, when Marco Lombardo recalls his idealism, "quel valore amai / al quale ha or ciascun disteso l'arco"; in Paradiso 15.6, where in reference to the celestial harp formed by the cross in the sphere of Mars Dante refers to "le sante corde / che la destra del ciel allenta e tira"; and in Paradiso 20.143, "E come a buon cantor buon citarista / fa seguitar lo guizzo della corda." For the analogy of the tempered bow and the body, Nardi (1930 131) cites one of continue

      the aphorismi of Serapion Damascenus recorded by Pietro d'Abano in his Conciliator (diff. 21, pr. 3): "Complexio corporis animati est ad figuram numeri consoni, idest, proportionem seu similitudinem armonici numeri. Huiusmodi autem proportio et consonantia musica magis reperitur in complexione temperata quam in aliis." From this point of view, the lack of health in the body can be described as distensio corporis by a physician like Jacopo da Bologna (Nardi 1930 244).

61. For the distinction of higher and lower souls (the Platonic distinction of intellectual, vital, and nutritive— Timaeus 69b-72d), see Vita nuova, chap. 2, where Dante's first sight of Beatrice produces a different comment from each of the "souls" or spirits.

62. Vallone (1974 256) notes: "È necessario scendere sempre più in basso per tentare poi di risalire. L'estrema umiliazione, il soffocamento d'ogni guizzo, l'offesa e la burla della stessa angoscia ricuperano nel fondo della coscienza i residui più inconditi e li sollevano a ribellione."

63. Arnaldo da Villanova interpreted the name of the disease as hereos because it dominates the physical life of its victims: "It is called heroic love, as if pertaining to lordship, not because it only afflicts lords, but either because it dominates by subjecting the soul and commanding the heart of man, or because the acts of such lovers toward the object desired are like the acts of subjects toward their lords" ("Dicitur autem amor heroycus, quasi dominalis, non quia solum accidat dominis, sed quia aut dominatur subiiciendo animam et cordi hominis imperando, aut quia talium amantium actus erga rem desideratam similes sunt actibus subditorum erga proprios dominos"; quoted in Lowes 1913-14 497; our translation).

64. The topic of flaying, though submerged, is implicit in the use of scudiscio and scorza. Perugi (1978 80) points out that "infine la reduplicazione in rima di XLVI 25 a scorza a scorza discende certo dalla clausola di 18.32 com l'ecors'en la veria: nella stessa canzone cfr. in rima il binomio sinonimico di 67 scudiscio e ferza, precisa gemmazione di veria." The imagery of flaying will be echoed in passages of the Commedia that are closely related to "Così": thus atra/ squatra/ latra returns in Inferno 6 as atra/latra/isquatra in the presence of iscoia: "Graffia gli spiriti ed iscoia ed isquatra" (18).

65. The association of Love with military activities and attributes goes back at least to Ovid, for whom every lover was a soldier ( militat omnis amans ) and every seduction a campaign. It acquires medieval trappings when courtly love service assumes the elaborate forms of vassalage; see Perella 1968 128-129. Love as a quasi-military dux is manifest, even etymologically, in the lyrics (cf. "Lo doloroso amor che mi conduce" ), in the Vita nuova, and in the Commedia (cf. "Amor condusse noi ad una morte," Inferno 5.106); and see Vallone 1974 255, for parallels. In the case of Dante, however, the military metaphor is taken much more seriously, both as an indication of the violent descort between speaker and lady in the petrose and as the context for the poet's own initiation into a select company—hence the determination of "Amor, tu vedi ben" as an unattempted task worthy of a knighting day (see Appendix 1). Owen (1975 45) reprints a miniature from Bibliothèque Nationale Ms. fr. III, fol. 126v (Paris), showing Lancelot continue

      holding Meleagant supine on the ground, sword at his breast, when King Bademagus intervenes. The positions illustrate those of Amor and the speaker in the poem.

66. In terms contemporary with Dante, the stanza is a poetic inquiry into Love's nature— Amor quid sit —closely related to Cavalcanti's own famous canzone, "Donna mi prega." Indeed, Cavalcanti's role as primo amico in the rhetorical excursus of Vita nuova 25 may help account for the elaborate reference to his poetry in the third stanza of "Così." Part of the reference is thematic: for example, the representation of the speaker's inner life through an interior theater, direct speech between the hypostatized spiriti, and the depiction of Amor as pitiless and destructive. Corti (1951 642) argues that the description of psychological states as an internal theater, as well as the tendency to represent the lover's plight as a deadly battle, characterizes Cavalcanti's lyrics. For the lotta or battaglia, see Corti 1951 650-652, with reference to Dante's adoption of these topics in the Vita nuova ("Amore . . . che fiere . . . e quale ancide"). Corti also discusses the phenomenon of Cavalcantian spiriti, noting in particular the ballata "Vedete ch'io son un," echoed in stanzas 3-4 of "Così." Boyde has analyzed the phenomenon of speaking spiriti, in both Cavalcanti and Dante, with reference to the rhetorical category of sermonicatio; for the link with Cavalcanti generally, see Dante 1967 2:278.

67. For scherana, see the parallels in Vallone 1974 260.

68. For the direct gaze as a formula in the Commedia, see Vallone 1974 265.

69. Ovid puts this succinctly in the Heroides ("Dido Aeneae," 195-96): "Praebuit Aeneas et causam mortis et ensem / Ipsa sua Dido concidit usa manu."

70. A summary of this thematics can be found in Klibansky, Panofsky, and Saxl 1964 146. In Paradiso 8.1-9, distinguishing between the (spurious) influence of Venus and Cupid as gods and the "real" influence of the planet, Dante draws on passages depicting the relation of Dido and Amor in the Aeneid that are also echoed in "Così nel mio parlar"; see Aeneid 1.715-19, 4.83-85.

71. Dante's use of the form ancidere in the poem ("ella ancide," 9; "il cor ch'io porto anciso," 75) strengthens the association with Dido; in Inferno 5.61, Dido is "colei che s'ancise amorosa."

72. This is made explicit in Ovid's Heroides 7.31-32 ("Dido Aeneae"): "Parce, Venus, nurui, durumque amplectere fratrem; / Frater Amor: castris militet ille tuis."

73. Dido reproaches Aeneas with having been born in the stony Caucasus ("sed duris genuit te cautibus horrens / Caucasus," Aeneid 4.366-67). Remaining unyielding—"mens immota manet," 4.449—he resembles the inflexible Amor of the canzone, "d'ogni merzé . . . messo al niego." The immutability of Amor before the speaker's pleas ("grido / merzé chiamando, e umilmente il priego," 37-38) reenacts Aeneas's refusal of Anna's embassy from the queen: "nullis ille movetur / fletibus aut voces ullas tractabilis audit" (4.438-439). See also the Heroides 7.37-38: "Te lapis et montes innataque rupibus altis / Robora, te saevae progenuere ferae."

74. Dido struck by Love's arrow: "uritur infelix Dido totaque vagatur / urbe furens, qualis coniecta cerva sagitta / . . . haeret lateri letalis harundo" ( Aeneid continue

      4.68-69, 73). Dido consumed by love's fire: "At regina gravi iamdudum saucia cura / Vulnus alit venis et caeco carpitur igni" (4.1-2). Cf. "cioè che'l penser bruca la lor vertù" (33). Dido burned with a hidden, silent wound: "est mollis flamma medullas / interea et tacitum vivit sub pectore vulnus" (4.66-67). Cf. "dispietata lima / che sordamente la mia vita scemi" (22-23). Dido haunted by the image of a fierce Aeneas: "agit ipse furentem / in somnis ferus Aeneas" (4.466). The lover's strida at line 44 may also echo the sound of Dido's death wound: "illa gravis oculos conata attollere rursus / defuit: infixum stridit sub pectore vulnus" (4.688-689).

75. "Atque illi stellatus iaspide fulva / ensis erat Tyrioque ardebat murice laena / demissa ex umeris, dives quae munera Dido / fecerat" ( Aeneid 4.261-264).

76. The sense of the exchange as a symbolic one is heightened by Servius's gloss on the jasper sword ( Aeneid 4.262): "ensem pro vagina posuit" (Thilo and Hagen 1923-27 1/2:512). Possiedi (1974 23) points out the function of Aeneas's jasper sword in the lapidary economy of the canzone: "la pietra che esalta la virtù della donna, distrugge il sensuale amatore dantesco, come un tempo la sua consorella africana."

77. See Aeneid 4.522-525, 529-532:

Nox erat et placidum carpebant fessa soporem 
corpora per terras, silvaeque et saeva quierant 
aequora, cum medio volvuntur sidera lapsu, 
cum tacet omnis ager, pecudes pictaeque volucres . . . 
at non  infelix animi Phoenissa, neque umquam 
solvitur in somnos oculisve aut pectore noctem 
accipit: ingeminant curae rursusque resurgens 
saevit amor magnoque irarum fluctuat aestu.

The importance of this passage for subsequent lyric, notably that of Petrarch, is well known.

78. The parallels include the use of the adversative conjunction for the lover's "subdiesis," echoing the repetition of At regina . . . at non in the Aeneid. We note, too, that the tragedy of Dido unfolds during the winter ("desaevit hiems," notes Anna as she persuades Dido to entertain her love for Aeneas [ Aeneid 4.52]). The whole of Book 4, with its self-contained structure modeled after Greek tragedy, is played out to the tune of Dido's tragic furor, which is discordant with the fated destiny of Rome. See Chapter 2, note 2.

79. Ovid's Dido provides an instance in the epitaph she orders; it is the final distich of her letter ( Heroides 7.195-196): "Aeneas furnished the cause of death, and the sword; Dido killed herself with her own hand." In the Aeneid, the sequence of causes stretches further: to the designs of Love—that is, of Venus—who collaborates with Juno to arrange the pseudomarriage in the cave; to the stratagem of Venus, who replaces Ascanius, sitting in Dido's lap, with the impish godlet of love himself, as Dante recalls in the Paradiso; to the divine plan instituted by Jove; to the fates.

80. "Haerent infixi pectore vultus / verbaque" ( Aeneid 4.4-5), describing continue

      how profoundly Aeneas's features strike into Dido's heart (with the verb used for the arrow point, haerere ), begins the series of events centered on Dido's wound: when Dido stabs herself, Aeneas's image ( vultus ) has literally become the mortal stroke ( vulnus ) that kills her, a continuity outwardly symbolized and completed by her use of his sword. Ovid, in the Heroides, will make the notion explicit ("Dido Aeneae," 189-190): "Nec mea nunc primum feriuntur pectora telo; / Ille locus saevi vulnus amoris habet." This pattern of imagery in Aeneid 4 is well known (see Otis 1970 70-72); it closely parallels the narrative of the canzone, in which the lady's effects are parsed as darts, as a file, and finally as a killing sword. What is more, the series of transformations of Love's agency in the Aeneid —beginning with the intervention of Venus (1.657; in collusion with Juno, 4.92ff.) and the placement of Cupid in Dido's lap (1.717-719), and culminating with Dido's use of Aeneas's sword ("ensemque recludit Dardanium," 4.647) to compass her suicide—anticipates the several designations of Love's agency in the canzone.

81. Often remarked is the development of the nautical metaphor of the lover as a calm sea—already a sophisticated variation on the more frequent equation of the lover to a ship, and fortune to a stormy sea—into the image of sinking in the next line ("il peso che m'affonda," 20). But there is no question here of a protosurrealism or of "irrational" associations of images. The calm of the marine surface, of which the lady is ignorant or contemptuous ("cotanto del mio mal par che si prezzi"), is also an image of the lover's present suppression of inner turbulence and the anticipation of the explosion of violence to come; it is poca bonaccia.

82. For the figure of the unquiet heart and Christian metaphorics, see Ferguson 1975. As Geoffroy de Vinsauf puts it: "Do not always permit the word to dwell in its own place: such residence is unseemly to the word itself: let it escape its proper place and journey elsewhere [ peregrinetur alibi ] and establish an agreeable seat in another's establishment: let it be, there, a new guest, and let its novelty be pleasing" (Faral 1924 211). Although the passage concerns tropes in general, Geoffroy's remarks echo classical definitions of the trope of metaphor. See Rhetorica ad Herennium 4.34.45: "Translatio est cum verbum in quandam rem transferetur ex alia re, quod propter similitudinem recte videbitur posse transferri"; and Isidore Etymologiarum liber 1.37.2: "Metaphora est verbi alicuius usurpata translatio, sicut cum dicimus 'fluctuare segetes' 'gemmare vites' dum in his rebus fluctus et gemmas non invenimus, in quibus haec verba aliunde transferuntur."

83. Dante quotes in the Convivio (2.6.2) the opinion of Epicurus that by following their appetites animals tend toward their ends, which are nourishment and reproduction. Aquinas, discussing the ends of man, illustrates movement directed at a goal (as opposed to self-movement) with the flight of the arrow ( Summa theologica 1a, quaest. 1, art. 2): "sicut sagitta tendit ad determinatum finem ex hoc quod movetur a sagittante, qui suam actionem dirigit in finem."

84. In the De vulgari eloquentia (2.viii.1), the target or end ( signum ) of an analysis (here, of a canzone) is logically prior to the analytical procedure, the "archery" ( admissionis sagittae vel iaculi ); in the Convivio (4.22), the target continue

      ( segno ) is the subject of human felicity that the poet has in hand ( I'arco della nostra operazione ). In the Commedia, the majority of uses may be listed as species of the single genus of purposeful activity: as an illustration of speed in reaching the target; as an expression of the direction of desire; as the emanation of the creative Logos; and as an illustration of speech. For the first, see Paradiso 2.23, 5.91; for the second, Purgatorio 6.130-131, 16.48 ("quel valore amai, al quale ha or ciascun disteso l'arco"). For the third, see Paradiso 1.119-121, 124-126; 8.103-105; 29.22-24. For the fourth, see Purgatorio 25.17-18, 31.16-21 (quoted below, note 92). For the figure of the arrow returning to the bow, see Singleton 1965 56-80; for the arrow and bow as images of the body, see Olson 1982 90-93.

85. The speaker's canzone is an expression of the tendency of all human activity to seek its natural end, as in Thomas Aquinas's response: "proprium est naturae rationalis ut tendat in finem" ( Summa Theologica 1a, quaest. 1, art. 2); this end, like the end of all movement and desire, is rest, quies, toward which even war and strife are subordinated as means. Dante writes at the beginning of the Convivio (1.1.1.): "ciascuna cosa, da providenza di propria natura impinta, è inclinabile alla sua perfezione."

86. Vallone (1974 267-268) points out how dritto in the congedo picks up presso efiso in stanza 6 and per lo cor ("per mezzo / lo core") in stanza 5.

87. Dante discusses natural love or gravity in the Convivio 3.3.1-5, listing different orders of being, from the elements like earth and fire through human beings, which incorporate all the desires; in the Monarchia, these natural dispositions illustrate ideas of concord (cf. I.1 5: "ita homines plures concordes dicimus, propter simul moveri secundum velle ad unum, quod est formaliter in suis voluntatibus, sicut qualitas una formaliter in glebis, scilicet gravitas, et una in flammis, scilicet levitas"). These ideas return in the Paradiso, 1.1 03-172, discussed below, note 91.

88. The nautical voyage as a figure for a directed task is traditional; it is implicit in one of Ovid's self-descriptions as narrator ( Ars amatoria 1.8). Dante adopts it the Convivio 2.1.1 and 4.28.8, where it illustrates the biography of Guido da Montefeltro (see Inferno 27.79-81), and the figure returns in the Commedia to describe both the pilgrimage itself ( Purgatorio 17.77-78) and the task of narrating it ("Per correr miglior acque alza le vele / omai la navicella del mio ingegno," Purgatorio 1.1-2). The simile of the lover as a ship making for port is a topos of love lyric (and is so anthologized in the Mare amoroso, 293-294 [Contini 1960 1:498]). Dante's version appears in many respects an adaptation of the figure in Giacomo da Lentini's canzone "Madonna, dir vi voglio": "paria che sofondasse, / e bene sofondara / lo cor, tanto gravara—in su' disio" (58-60).

89. "Quella parte, coiè la ragione, ch'è la sua perfezione maggiore" ( Convivio 2.8.11); also 3.3.12. The association of the cima della mente or apex mentis with a flower is a traditional Neoplatonic metaphor ( anthos; cf. Wallis 1972 153); for the apex mentis in "Così," see Friedrich 1964 156; and Mazzotta 1979 162.

90. "Ignis sursum tendit, deorsum lapis. Ponderibus suis aguntur, loca sua petunt . . . . Minus ordinata, inquieta sunt; ordinantur et quiescunt. Pondus meum, amor meus, eo feror, quocumque feror. Dono tuo accendimur et sursum ferimur. Inardescimus et imus . . . quoniam sursum imus ad pacem Ierusa- soft

      lem" (Capello 1948 532-533; translation Augustine 1960 454). A previous application of this passage to verse 20 of "Così" is in Mazzotta 1978 290.

91. Even closer and more extensive resonance with the canzone is to be found in Dante's own terms for universal teleology in the Paradiso, where rising and sinking movements are combined with the voluntary motion of human agents:

Onde si muovono a diversi porti 
   per lo gran mar dell'essere, e ciascuna 
   con istinto a lei data che la porti. 
Questi ne porta il foco inver la luna; 
   questi ne' cor mortali è permotore; 
   questi la terra in sé stringe e aduna. 
           (1.112-117)

      The context of the passage is appropriate for "Così" because devoted to explaining why the pilgrim, a material body, can ascend like fire. The principle of natural inclination is itself compared to an arrow ("quest'arco saetta," 1.119) and its goal to the peace of the Empyrean ("il ciel sempre quïeto," 1.122), while the failure of natural love is attributed to the "deafness" of matter ("la materia è sorda," 129)—echoing the saetta, the pace, and the petra of our canzone. The pilgrim's motion toward his goal is compared to the arrow's flight:

ed ora lì, com'a sito decreto, 
   cen porta la virtù di quella corda, 
   che ciò che scocca drizza in segno lieto. 
           (1.124-126)

92. In the Purgatorio, too, the pilgrim's view of Beatrice is parsed in terms of two beauties, her eyes and her mouth. Thus, her ninfe invite her to unveil her mouth for the pilgrim: "fa noi grazia che disvele / a lui la bocca tua, sì che discerna / la seconda bellezza che tu cele" (31.136-138); her eyes, in turn, are "li smeraldi / ond'Amor già ti trasse le sue armi" (31.116-117), and so akin to the eyes of the petra —which also fire shots—in "Così." For the evolution of the petra into the figure of Beatrice, see below, note 136.

93. PG 3.717b: "Et haec quidem omnino bono participant, illa autem magis et minus privantur, alia autem obscuriorem habent boni participationem, et aliis secundum ultimam resonantiam adest bonum." Albertus Magnus comments ( Super librum Dionysium de divinis nominibus 4.169): "sicut in his quae malo fini semper coniuncta sunt, ut amor luxuriae, qui tamen, inquantum amor, habet aliquam resonantiam boni, imperfecte tamen."

94. We have argued that "Donne ch'avete" is structured as procession and return; the final account of the lady, whose eyes are the origin and whose mouth the goal of Love, is a recapitulation of the structure. The rhyme riso/fiso/viso returns in Dante's canzone "Amor che nella mente mi ragiona," commented on in the third book of the Convivio, in a similar context; the lady's viso is the vehicle of return to beatific contemplation: break

Cose appariscon ne lo suo aspetto 
che mostran de' piacer di Paradiso,

dico ne li occhi e nel suo dolce riso 
che le vi reca Amor com'a suo loco. 
Elle soverchian lo nostro intelletto 
come raggio di sole un frale viso: 
e perch'io non le posso mirar fiso. 
            (55-61)

95. The first is in chapter 3, the first instance of the saluto: "e passando per una via, volse gli occhi verso quella parte ov'io era molto pauroso."

96. Cf. the frequency of mention of the eyes in "Amor, tu vedi ben" (see Chapter 4, pp. 153-155). On the eye rays as razzi, raggi, radii, and their relationship to light rays, see Favati 1975 188: "Di solito, la parola [razzo] si accosta ai raggi o rai che anche Dante adopera col senso di 'sguardi,' benchè sempre al plurale." Aristotle ( De insomniis 459a) notes that the persistence of visual images in dreams is analogous to the continued motion of a projectile after it has been cast.

97. When occhi appears in "Così" before this point, it refers always to the eyes of others. On verses 74-75 and their possible derivation from Arnaut, see Perugi 1978 83: "riteniamo . . . non impossibile che 7.28 'lo cors m'abranda' abbia fornito il modello immediato per Rime 46.74-5 'Ancor ne li occhi, ond'escon le faville/che m'infiammano il cor' (si osservi che nel modello ad abranda precede in rima aflama )."

98. "È affermata fin dal primo verso la conversione del contenuto nella forma, la poetica delle provenzali rimas caras " (Dante 1946 163).

99. See the passage in the Convivio about the danger of ocular contact, which is marked as the moment when Love lets fly his arrow: "E qui si vuol sapere che avvegna ché più cose ne l'occhio a un'ora possano venire, veramente quella che viene per retta linea nella punta della pupilla, quella veramente si vede, e nella immaginativa si suggella solamente. E questo è però che il nervo per lo qual corre lo spirito visivo, è diritto a quella parte; e però veramente l'un occhio l'altro occhio non può guardare, sicchè esso non sia veduto da lui; chè sì come quello che mira riceve la forma ne la pupilla per retta linea, così per quella medesima linea la sua forma se ne va in quello ch'ello mira: e molte volte, nel dirizzare di questa linea, discocca l'arco di colui al quale ogni arma è leggiere" (2.9.4-5). For the possible relationship of this passage to the optical principle of the centric ray as described by Alhazen, see Edgerton 1975 85-86.

100. The denti d'Amor previously used on the speaker also return in the parlar aspro, a corrosive speech produced by jaws that bark in the caldo borro. A scriptural tradition that compares trenchant words and God's searching Logos to arrows and swords is behind Dante's conception of his poem as mordant—a conception made explicit in the tornata. The description of the Psalmist's enemies at Psalm 57:5 ("Filii hominum dentes eorum arma et sagittae, Et lingua eorum gladius acutus") provides one context for the principal images in the canzone (see also Proverbs 25:18: "Iaculum, et gladius, et sagitta acuta, Homo qui loquitur contra proximum suum falsum testimonium"). In the Old Testament, arrows are often forms of divine wrath (Isaiah 5:28), while the sword is continue

      the word of the prophet (Isaiah 49:2: "et posuit os meum quasi gladium acutum"). Examples could be multiplied.

101. The presence of Cupid's weapons is probably no accident. Of the traditional attributes discussed by Panofsky (1972), only the blindfold and nudity are explicitly absent, though they remain implicit in the speaker's fear of being seen and in the lady's lack of vulnerability—she is never explicitly ignuda. Panofsky (p. 105) cites the account of Hrabanus Maurus, copied from Isidore: "Cupidinem vocatum ferunt propter amorem. Est enim daemon fornicationis, qui ideo alatus pingitur, quia nihil amantibus levius, nihil mutabilius invenitur. Puer pingitur, quia stultus est et irrationalis amor. Sagittam et facem tenere fingitur, quia amor cor vulnerat, facem, quia inflammat." The pairing of the wound and the flame in the canzone ("le faville / che m'infiammano il cor," 74-75; "m'ha ferito il core," 80) are probably another echo of Virgil, whose influential verses "cura / vulnus alit venis et caeco carpitur igni" ( Aeneid 4.1-2) touch on both the wound and fire of love, as Servius notes: "et bene adludit ad Cupidinis tela, ut paulo post ad faculam, ut 'et caeco carpitur igni'; nam sagittarum vulnus est, facis incendium" (Thilo and Hagen 1923-27 1/2:459-460).

102. As Aquinas points out in his commentary on the De anima, the word phantasm is from phos, "light" (Aquinas 1959 162).

103. The displacement of exact sexual terms in the final scene is very marked; Perugi (1978 80) suggests that scudiscio e ferza is a "precisa gemmazione di veria ( verga )" from Arnaut's sestina. It might therefore be a veiled allusion to "lo membro che l'uom cela"—as indeed, it has been hidden here. For the sexual nature of the weapons in the poem, see di Girolamo 1976 23-24.

104. See above, pp. 169-170.

105.   .

Poi, come'l foco movesi in altura 
   per la sua forma ch'è nata a salire 
   là dove più in sua matera dura, 
Così l'animo preso entra in disire, 
   ch'è moto spiritale, e mai non posa 
   fin che la cosa amata il fa gioire. 
                  ( Purgatorio  18.28-33)

106. The association between the justice within the soul and the cosmos described in the Timaeus, on the one hand, and the justice that reigns in the state (described in the Republic ), on the other, is a leading theme of commentary on the Platonic texts in the Middle Ages; see Freccero 1986 177.

107. Dante also uses, in De vulgari eloquentia 2, the form compago (2.vi.2; 2.vii.6; 2.ix.3, 6); his use may allude to the traditional etymology of the word in pax. See Mengaldo's note in Dante 1979a 177.

108. Boethius's yearning to fix his eyes on the fountain of good in "O qui perpetua" ( defigere visus, 25) is possibly echoed here. Augustine's glosses on 1 Corinthians 13:12 are particularly rich in reference to the beatific vision; see Confessions 13.13: "Sic interim sentio, propter illud coelum coeli, coelum intellectuale, ubi est intellectus nosse simul, non ex parte, non in aenigmate, non per speculum, sed ex toto manifestatione facie ad faciem. " Augustine's discussion of continue

      the vision of the saints in the penultimate chapter (22.29) of the De civitate Dei is a gloss on facies ad faciem, including the topic of the final peace that passes understanding (Philippians 4:7).

109. See Perella 1969 51-58, and related notes. Perella cites (p. 52) Bernard's Sermones super Cantica 2.2.3 ( Opera 1.9-10), where the "kiss" is identified with Christ as the Incarnation, which joins heaven and earth in a kiss of peace: "making peace between the things of earth and heaven, for He is our Peace who has made one out of both." He also cites (p. 291 n .14) Guillaume de Saint-Thierry's paraphrase of the bride's longing for the kiss of the bridegroom as the soul's longing for the beatific vision: "Mysterium regni Dei desidero, palam nihi annuntiari de Patre deposco; faciem ad faciem, oculum ad oculum, osculum ad osculum. Osculetur me osculo oris sui " ( Exposé sur le Cantique des Cantiques [Paris, 1962], 118-120).

110. Among the effects of love Aquinas lists liquefactio: "quae opponitur congelationi. Ea enim quae sunt congelata, in seipsis constricta sunt, ut non possint de facili subintrationem alterius pati . . . Unde cordis congelatio vel duritia est dispositio repugnans amori. Sed liquefactio importat quandam mollificationem cordis, qua exhibet se cor habile ut amatum in ipsum subintret" ( Summa theologica 1a-2ae, quaest. 28, art. 5).

111. Vallone (1974 265) takes a more cautious tack: "la novità della petrosa è che, fermo restando questo sfondo, il poeta si sente tanto audace da guardare presso e fiso. Si esprimono due atti distinti; l'accostarsi e il guardare senza distogliere lo sguardo. È attitudine di uomo degno di alto destino, non di uomo mortale."

112. For this rhyme in Monte Andrea ("sì'l cor dell'omo squatra," in rhyme with atra ), see Baldelli 1973 937.

113. Vallone (1974 261) cites the near parallels of burrato in Inferno 12.10 and 16.114; he quotes a canzone of Paolo dell 'Abbaco ("Voce dolente pia nel cor che piagne"):

Ahi ventre golforeo che non li squatra 
El forte laccio dell'avaro Giuda 
Che disperato suda 
Nel caldo borro sostenendo guai.

      The expression suggests an intense misogyny; see Perugi 1978 96-100, who claims to find in Dante's text (though not here) traces of Arnaut's obscene and misogynistic sirventes.

114. Vallone (1974 261) notes: "l'idea del soccorrere è riportata quasi sempre in Dante al bene che dall'alto si distribuisce in basso: è un idea sacra. Beatrice (e basti questo esempio) è pietosa perche soccorre il poeta ( Inferno 2.133). . . . L'ironia di io vi soccoro si muta così in caricatura." But Vallone retreats from the ambiguity suggested by the cited parallels.

115. The speaker's ability to see the petra is thus analogous, though obviously in a different context, to the removal of the veil over Moses' face described in 2 Corinthians 3:18: "Cum autem conversus fuerit ad Dominum, auferetur continue

      velamen." For the possible relation of this passage to the petrose and the Commedia, see Freccero 1972.

116. See especially lines 9-10: "Ah, prender lei a forza, ultra su'grato, / e bagiarli la bocca e'l bel visaggio / e li occhi suoi, ch'èn due fiamme de foco!" (Contini 1960 2:479); in the final verses, however, the poet repents. See also Fiore 57, 60, and 66.

117. The congedo of "Così" is thus not strictly opposed in meaning, as has been claimed (Comens 1986 186), to the congedo verse that echoes it, "chè perdonar è bel vincer di guerra" ("Tre donne intorno al cor mi son venute," 107), a sentiment that echoes the moment fantasized at the end of stanza six of "Così." For the close relation of "Così" and "Tre donne" in terms of rhymes (e.g., cruda, ignuda ), see Baldelli 1973 938-939. The last line of the congedo to "Così" is modeled, as Perugi notes (1978 79), on Arnaut Daniel 17.50: "q'atenden fai pros homs rica conquesta." Dante cites this poem ("Sim fos amors de ioi donar . . . .") in De vulgari eloquentia 2.xiii.2.

118. Dante will refer to the heavens as lures in Purgatoro 14.147.

119. On this anticourtly dimension, already observed by Fenzi (1966 266), see di Girolamo 1976 27: "si tratta di un messaggio che, benchè non immediatamente anticortese, esorbita per molti aspetti dalle possibilità espressive di un poeta cortese"; and Comens 1986 185.

120. See above, Chapters 2, pp. 104-105; 3, pp. 116-119; and 4, pp. 143, 163; and the current chapter, pp. 191-193. For Medusa and Pygmalion in the petrose, see also Mazzotta 1979 284-287.

121. In Genealogie 10.9, Boccaccio (following a gloss of Arnulfus of Orléans) "demystifies" the Medusa's petrifying power as the paralyzing effect of great beauty (Boccaccio 1951 2:496): "Quod autem prospectantes in saxa converterent, ob id fictum existimo, quia tam grandis esset earum pulchritudo, quod eis visis obstupescerent intuentes, et muti atque immobiles non aliter quam essent saxei devenirent."

122. Ovid Metamorphoses 4.793-802; esp. 800-801: "neve hoc inpune fuisset, / Gorgoneum crinem turpes mutavit in hydros."

123. We thank Rachel Jacoff for this suggestion.

124. The link is the more striking in Mss. Ba and Ce of the Roman de la rose, where a passage of fifty-two lines describing the Medusa directly precedes the tale of Pygmalion; see Freccero 1986 127, 303. In Ovid, the Gorgon is a maker of instant statues; see Barkan 1981 646.

125. Ovid Metamorphoses 10.238-298; see also the Roman de la rose, lines 20755-21236. Among the numerous parallels between the texts of the petrose and the narrative of Pygmalion in the Roman, the most striking is in lines 20817 and 20823: "Pygmalions, uns entaillierres / . . . / Car onc de li nus ne l'ot mieudre"; and "Amor, tu vedi ben," 10-12: "mi fa sembiante pur come una donna / che fosse fatta d'una bella petra / per man di quei che me' intagliasse in petra" (see Chapter 4, note 25). The insistence in the Latin narrative on Pygmalion's palping of his statue, both before and after it is brought to life ("saepe manus operi temptantes admovet / . . . / et credit tactis digitos insidere membris / . . . / continue

      manibus quoque pectora temptat," Metamorphoses 10.254, 257, 282), may be related to the sexual meaning of the speaker's hands ( "metterei mano," 65) in the fantasy of "Così nel mio parlar."

126. Both "animating" forces—the poet's persuasive skill, exhibited in all the petrose, and the petition of higher powers (as in "Amor, tu vedi ben")—are reflected in the Pygmalion narrative, where the impression of the statue's life is an effect of the sculptor's skill, her actual animation the result of Pygmalion's prayer to Venus ( Metamorphoses 10.274-275: "Si, di, dare cuncta potestis, / sit coniunx, opto").

127. See the Ovide moralisé 10.3586-3678 (de Boer 1915-38 vol. 15); and Barkan 1981 642. Pygmalion's sculpture adheres closely to the traditional idea, which we have seen expressed in Albertus Magnus and Dante himself, of art or sculpture as the realization in matter of a concept already fully apprehended in the mind; this of course answers to many passages in the petrose, and constitutes the principal hidden premise that makes poetry an activity parallel to sculpture: see "la mente mia, ch'è più dura che petra / in tener forte imagine di petra" ("Io son venuto," 12-13); "Io porto nel la mente donna" ("Amor, tu vedi ben," 61).

128. For this interpretation, which is based on a reading of the Roman de la rose (which compares Pygmalion to Narcissus), see Robertson 1963 99-103.

129. Although most nearly explicit in the reference to a sculptor in "Amor, tu vedi ben," the petrosa that shows the greatest number of parallels to the Pygmalion narrative in the Roman de la rose is the final scene of"Così nel mio parlar": aside from generic resemblances involving the lady's unwillingness to hear the lover's suit ("el n'antant riens ne ne sent," 20919) are the striking parallels of the lover's burning as he gazes into the eyes of the petra ("Ancor ne li occhi, ond'escon le faville / che m'infiammano il cor . . . / guarderei presso e fiso" (74-76); cf. "et quant de plus prés la regarde / plus art son queur" (21131-32); also the verse of the lady as one "che m' invola / quello ond'io ho più gola" (80-81) and Pygmalion's reference to the statue as "la bele qui mon cuer m' anble " (21097).

130. Of course, Dante's petra "parla e sente come fosse donna"—but this means merely that the poet departs from the premise of a woman whose cruelty has made her, though alive, seem like stone. Indeed, Dante's line seems to almost precisely invert the terms of Jean de Meun's "sourde et mue / qui ne se crole ne se mue"; and note also Boccaccio's wording for the Medusa's admirers: "muti atque immobiles."

131. "Al poco giorno" and "Io son venuto" are also recalled in the rich rhyme and derivative rhyme on ombra at 31.140-144 ( ingombra, adombra; cf. "Io son venuto," 9-10: ombra, ingombra ). Indeed, the whole scene, with Beatrice revealing her mouth to the pilgrim while the heavens harmonize ("armonizzando il ciel," 31.144), is a transformation of the congedo of "Al poco giorno," with the rhyme-words ordered hierarchically and the lady presented as a second sun. For the parallel of barbato ("Al poco giorno," 4) with dibarba (31.70), see SturmMaddox 1987 132.

132. In addition to the crossbow ( balestra, 31.16), see the strale of 31.48, the continue

      rete and saetta of 31.63, the armi of 31.117; also the pageant as an army ("glorioso essercito," 32.17) and Beatrice as an admiral ( ammiraglio, 30.58).

133. For the lover's petrified mind, see "Io son venuto," 12 ("la mente mia ch'è più dura che petra"); but see also Purgatorio 33.79-80, where it is Beatrice who seals the pilgrim's mind indelibly, "che la figura impressa non tramuta." For echoes of "Io son venuto" in 30.85, see Chapter 6, note 33.

134. For impetra ("Così," 3), see 30.133 ("nè l'impetrare spirazion mi valse"). Nuda ("Così," 4, 8, 9: cruda, ignuda, chiuda ) is at 33.100, 102, 104: nude (of parole ), rude, conchiude. Atra ( atre, 30.54, rhyming with patre and matre ) echoes "Così," 54, 55, 58, 59: squatra, atra, latra, latra. Atre, with vowels interchanged, gives ( p)etra —not an arbitrary observation in view of the close phonetic, sometimes anagrammatic relationships linking many of the words in the petrose (e.g., sordamente, rodermi: "Così," 23, 25). Sturm-Maddox (1987) builds her case for a palinodic evocation of the rime petrose in Purgatorio 30-31 around Beatrice's use of the term pargoletta (31.59) as reference to "Io son venuto," 72. Sturm-Maddox is, however, prudently aware of the lack of specificity of this designation, which occurs elsewhere in Dante's lyrics, and cautions (p. 127): "The pargoletta is the marker of a textual presence, not that of an historical presence."

135. In Paradiso 7.14, Dante disassembles Beatrice's name into the two halves of her nickname, Bice —BE and ICE ("pur per Be e per ice ")—suppressing the -atr core; the pointed alliterativeness of this passage seems specifically to recall Beatrice's oddly stuttering self-announcement in Purgatorio 30.73: "'Guardaci ben: ben son, ben son Beatrice."' It is significant that in the only one of Dante's lyrics (outside of the Vita nuova ) that names Beatrice ("Lo doloroso amor" [Dante 1946 67-70]), we find an early excursion into harsh diction (e.g., agro, magro, verses 15, 18); "un vento freddo, da rima petrosa," is Contini's remark (p. 67). Perugi's analysis (1978 70-73) elucidates many of Dante's debts to Arnaut in "Lo doloroso amor."

136. "Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona," 73-86; see Convivi 3.15.19.

1. The most suggestive discussion so far is Freccero 1972 (also in 1986 119-135). Sturm-Maddox (1987) recognizes the place of the petrose in the text of the Purgatorio; although the recognition is welcome, her reading of "Io son venuto" as strictly fatalistic is erroneous.

2. See Dante 1946 149-50; Blasucci 1957; Marti 1960 525-530; and Jacomuzzi 1972 18. Toja (1973 735) makes a case for associating passages of intense transumptio (e.g., Purgatorio 6.76-151) with the tradition of trobar clus (but see also Blasucci 1979 28-29), thus indirectly with the petrose.

3. For the "brau lengage" of Pier delle Vigne, see Spitzer 1942 92-93. The tenzone of Sinon and Maestro Adamo is often linked to Dante's tenzone with Forese, a category of "realism" closely linked to the petrose; see Dante 1946 20-21; Contini 1970a 170; and Marti 1960 526-527. Cantos 5, 6, 7, 12, 24, and continue

      25 show important connections with the petrose as well; see our discussions, pp. 202, 212-217, and 223.

4. Blasucci (1969 5-6) minimizes the importance of the scientific dimensions of the petrose in favor of the category of "energy": "Ma di gran lunga più imponente [than the astronomical and elemental aspects], come s'è detto, è lo sviluppo nel poema di quel linguaggio carico d'energia, che costituisce la risorsa stilistica più feconda delle petrose."

5. Russo 1971 103-158; for the features noted in the text, see esp. pp. 144-156.

6. For terms relating to gems in Dante's Paradiso, see Appendix 3.

7. Dragonetti (1968 275-418) argues that the distribution of gems in the Paradiso is systematic, a hierarchy of attributes derived largely from the Etymologiarum liber of Isidore. For the gems of the Paradiso, see Appendix 3.

8. In Albert's De animalibus (1916-21 1081), the seminal and formative virtù of the spheres is compared to the art of the sculptor Policleitus, to whom Dante alludes in Purgatorio 10.32. The allusion illustrates Albert's discussion of the spheres as the tools, the chisels or hammers, of the intelligences who are the craftsmen; Dante refers, in the heaven of Gemini, to the hammers and anvils of Nature (24.102). See Chapter 2, note 75.

9. For this passage, see below, note 31.

10. The cycle of evaporation and rainfall, one of the solar cycles described in Purgatorio 5, is linked to the cycle of water in "Amor, tu vedi ben"; see Convivio 4.18.4 and Quaglio's notes in Dante 1964 1: 386. For Paradiso 28 as an echo of "Io son venuto," see Comens 1986 167.

11. See below, pp. 212-217, for our discussion of Inferno 24-25.

12. The relation to poetry and poets is in the allusive register as well. As we know, Dante draws on two of his Latin exemplars, Lucan and Statius, for the bird similes in the Purgatorio. He draws on Lucan as well for his account of the serpents in Inferno 24-25—the same passages consulted for the accounts of the wind in "Io son venuto," as noted by Contini (Dante 1946 14). Dante's bird similes have been much discussed: see, e.g., Shoaf 1975; and Ryan 1976. On the poets in the Purgatorio specifically, see, e.g., Abrams 1976, 1985; Folena 1977; Moleta 1979-80; Martinez 1983; and Barolini 1984.

13. A recent reading along these lines is Abrams 1985.

14. In both cases, triegue rhymes with segue; triegua appears but three times in the Commedia.

15. For virtù in the Purgatorio, see 16.59; 17.54, 73; 17.104: "amor sementa in voi d'ogni virtute"; 18.51: "specifica virtù ha in sè colletta"; 18.62, 73 (seven uses). Cf. also 16.114: "ogn'erba si conosce per lo seme"; abete at 22.133; lauro at 22.108; verdura at 23.69; and erba, acerba at 11.115, 117.

16. No other lyrics of Dante adopt both these features. Dante's canzoni in the Convivio "Voi ch'intendendo" and "Amor che ne la mente" both draw on astronomical concepts, but neither has a seasonal beginning that includes telling time by the planets and stars; Sonnet 1 of the Vita Nuova ("Erano quasi atterzate l'ore") is unspecific except with reference to the time of night. For a recent history of the spring beginning in lyric poems of the Latin West and in continue

      European vernacular poetry, see Wilhelm 1964. A poem sometimes attributed to Arnaut, "Entre'l taur e'l doble signe," has a fully astronomical incipit; see Daniel 1981 78-81.

17. For a suggestive (if minority) view on the meaning of these three passages taken together, see Pecoraro 1987 231-238. The dating of the poem remains a topic of debate, but opinion in favor of April 8, 1300, as the date of the pilgrim's entrance to Hell is now preponderant; see Moore 1895 145-176; and Boyde 1981 163-165. For the creation of the world in the spring, with the sun in Aries, see Moore 1903 61, 64, 73, 54- n , 170 n .

18. Just before, at 1.17-18, Dante had mentioned the sun as the "pianeta / che mena dritto altrui per ogne calle." Dante's concern with the astronomical resonance of his lines may be gauged by the fact that the first mention of the sun in the poem, at verse 17, balances the third mention of it, at verse 60; the fulcrum is verse 38, cited in the text (if we count lines, 1.17 is twenty-one lines from 1.38, and 1.38 twenty-two lines from 1.60. If we count tercets, the symmetry is exact). For other echoes of the petrose in the first two cantos of the Inferno, see below, pp. 204-207.

19. For the parallels, see Baldelli 1978b 69; Mazzotta 1979 44.

20. The other principal influence is, of course, the Vita nuova, in which events in the text are correlated with celestial motions and recoverable dates (such as that of Beatrice's death, June 8, 1290). For reconstructions of Dante's and Beatrice's horoscopes in the Vita nuova, see Pecoraro 1987 345-363, 440.

21. Dante's reference to the spring in Purgatorio 32.53-54 periphrastically names the sun in Aries ("la gran luce mischiata con quella / che raggia dietro alla celeste lasca"); gran luce is plausibly an antiphrase of poco giorno and gran cerchio d'ombra. For Aries, see also Paradiso 1.40, 28.117, and 29.2 (discussed below, pp. 210-211).

22. For Leo as ruler of Italy, mentioned by Ptolemy, see Rabuse 1972 22.

23. Jacomuzzi (1972 18) observes that the very first lines of the Commedia echo the petrose. Relevant text is: Nel mezzo del cammin . . . / mi ritrovai ( Inferno 1.1-2); dura / . . . aspra e forte (1.4-5); punto (1.11; rhyming with giunto, 1.13). Cf., from the first two petrose, the identification of a specific point on the arc of life ("Io son venuto al punto della rota") and the insertion of the speaker in relation to it ( mi ritrovai; son venuto; son giunto ); the threatening darkness of the negative point ( quel punto ); the speaker's response ("lasso" in "Al poco giorno"; ahi in the Commedia ). Dura, selvaggia, and aspra recall the diction of the petrose. A striking detail is how the rhyme on giunto/punto in the Commedia (which then closes out with a rime riche—compunto —in the style of the "equivocating" petrose ) draws the link between giunto and punto (not in rhyme) in the early verses of "Io son venuto" and "Al poco giorno."

      The descent to Hell in Canto 2 of the Inferno also shares situation, diction, rhyme, and syntax with "Al poco giorno" and especially "Io son venuto." Notable are the evening scene; the appeal to the contrast of other animals and the poet ("e io sol uno," 2.3); and the speaker's resolution ("a sostener la guerra / . . . del cammino," 2.4-5). Compare, in "Io son venuto": the adver- soft

      sative e  . . . in each sirma distinguishing the lover from the rest of nature, and the lover's insistence on going the course ("e io da la mia guerra / non son però tornato," 62-63), expressed with the same rhyme ( -erra ) used in Inferno 2. The same sources—the insomnia of Dido in Aeneid 4 and of Aeneas in 8—are alluded to in "Io son venuto" and at the beginning of Inferno 2.

24. The horoscope of Florence comes into play in the canto of Pier delle Vigne ( Inferno 13), where the presence of Mars in the city's natal horoscope is said to account for its recurrent strife. See Rabuse 1957 11-77; and Schnapp 1987 37-38.

25. See Monarchia 1.11.5, where justice "est enim tunc Phebe similis, fratrem dyametraliter intuenti de purpureo matutino serenitatis."

26. Dante 1973 2:26. The same principles apply to the first verses of Purgatorio 15, 25, and 27.

27. For Dante's insistence, in a polemical context, on the differences between sun and moon, see Monarchia 3.4.

28. For a similar textual strategy on Dante's part, see Paradiso 13.55-57 and Sapegno's note in Dante 1957b, 952.

29. There are additional references, throughout the cantica, both to the horizon itself (e.g., 3.70, the midpoint of that canto) and to effects of the horizon: dawn and dusk, or determinations of time according to it (e.g., 3.25-26, 4.139).

30. Singleton (1965a) shows that the seven central cantos of the Purgatorio form a symmetrical fan, at the core of which are two mentions of free will, also symmetrically placed, by Marco Lombardo (16.73) and by Virgil (18.73). Singleton claims that the symmetry at the center is the poet's mark, or seal, on his work. It is thus appropriate that the original separation of light from darkness should be echoed at the center of the poem: the poet forms his text by dividing it. By the same criterion, the central division of night and day is framed by references, twenty-five tercets away, to the influence of the planets: 16.73: "lo cielo i vostri movimenti inizia"; 18.70-71: "poniam che di necessitate / surga ogni amor." Close by (16.106-10, 18.76-80) there are references to the sun and moon.

31. The previous evening in Purgatory, when the pilgrim had met Sordello, also includes a subtle weave of references to the petrose, beginning in Canto 7 and continuing through the beginning of Canto 9: for example, the phrasing of "mentre che l'orizzonte il dì tien chiuso" (7.60) rephrases "Io son venuto," 19: "[lo vento] questo emisperio chiude tutto e salda." Verse 7.85 ("prima che'l poco sole omai s'annidi") echoes the birth of Gemini from the horizon in the canzone ("l'orizzonte, quando il sol si corca, / ci partorisce il geminato cielo"), with the pairing poco sole echoing poco giorno in the sestina. The depiction of the stars in the constellation Scorpio arrayed like gems on the forehead of dawn at the beginning of Canto 9 is very much in the style of the petrose. Such parallels might appear generic, but they gain in force when we note the exact verbal echoes of the language of "Io son venuto" in these cantos: thus the rhymes at 8.100-103 ( alto/assalto/smalto ) reproduce the rhymes of the canzone (55, 57-58), though in a different order. Subsequently, at 8.131, 133, 135, torca/sol non si ricorca/inforca repeat the rhymes in verses 2 and 5 of the canzone ( sol si corca / inforca ), while at continue

      9.13-15 guai / lai / inchinai evoke guai / gai in verses 32 and 33 of the canzone. Remarkable about this pattern is the fact that the triple repetition of the rhyme -alto (which Dante uses also in Inferno 9) from "Io son venuto" is at the exact center of a section of 139 lines (that is, of canto length) that begins at 8.42, with the pilgrim gelato at the thought of the appearance of the serpent, and concludes at 9.42, with the pilgrim again feeling the cold: aghiaccia.

32. Inferno 24.66. Strictly speaking, the word is one of the yrsuta ornativa by reason of excessive length, prolixitatis ( De vulgari eloquentia 2.vii.6).

33. That this passage is related to the petrose is well known; see Dante 1957a 263; and Baker 1974. The simile is linked to three other passages in the Commedia that employ the imagery of melting, or "unwintering": Purgatorio 30.85-99; and Paradiso 2.106-108 (discussed below, pp. 225-226) and 33.64-66. For the relation of Purgatorio 30.85-99 to the petrose, see Blasucci 1969 25-27; and SturmMaddox 1987 130. The passage requires more extensive analysis, however, for it is less a palinodic qualification of the petrose than their incorporation in a new context; the imagery and techniques of "Io son venuto" are much in evidence. In the passage, the snow frozen in the "living beams" ( vive travi ) of the evergreens in the mountains on the spine of Italy, subsequently thawed by the south winds blowing from the tropics, is compared to the tears and sighs of the pilgrim produced by the song of the angels. The operation of cold in both the earth and the pilgrim is described in terms by now familiar to us from our study of the petrose: the snow in the mountains is constrained ( stretta ) by the Slavonian or north winds as the ice contracts around the pilgrim's heart ("il gel che m'era intorno al cor ristretto" ). The living beams, the back ( dosso ) of the mountains, and the breath ( spiri ) of the wind are terms that mediate the animate and the inanimate, the world and the body. The "land that loses shade" in the passage is of course a direct reference to, and a meteorological inversion of, the wind from Ethiopa of "Io son venuto":

      Levasi de la rena d'Etiopia 
lo vento peregrin che l'aere turba, 
per la spera del sol ch'ora la scalda; 
   e passa il mare, onde conduce copia 
di nebbia tal che, s'altro non la sturba, 
questo emisperio chiude tutto e salda; 
      e poi si solve, e cade in bianca falda 
di fredda neve ed in noiosa pioggia, 
onde l'aere s'attrista tutto e piagne.

      The passages are complementary (the common source in Lucan's Pharsalia 9.528-531 is pointed out by Contini in Dante 1946 153). In the canzone, the sun, having passed to the south of the equator, heats the air and raises winds that bring warm moist air to Italy to feed winter snows; but in the Purgatorio, the land that loses shade yields the warm breezes that melt the snow. In the first case, snow is produced by the release of water; in the second, snow melts into flowing water. The parallel between macro- and microcosm is elaborated with great complexity in the formal frame of the five tercets. The vehicle of the simile continue

      occupying the first two tercets relates the freezing and the melting of the snow. The tenor begins with the third tercet ("così fui . . .") and reiterates the moments of freezing and melting: freezing appears in the third and fifth, melting in the fourth and fifth tercets. Each term of the simile includes a subsimile: in the vehicle, the melting of snow is compared to a flame melting its way through a candle; in the tenor, the real effect of the angel's song is compared to imagined results of a verbal intercession (Dante 1957b 742). The entire passage is thus an application of the natural landscape deployed in "Io son venuto" to the pilgrim on the summit of the mountain of Purgatory (see above, pp. 197-198). ( Dante Studies 102 [1984, published in 1988] appeared too late to be taken into account here.)

34. Baker (1974 78-79) notes the focus on time, but for him the prevailing mood is one of stagnation and paralysis.

35. See Virgil's "si parva licet componere magnis," Georgics 4.176. The association of the passage with pastoral is of long standing; see Dante 1957b 262-263; Dante 1970 409.

36. References to spring in the petrose use dolce: "il dolce tempo che riscalda i colli" ("Al poco giorno," 10); "dolce tempo novello" ("Io son venuto," 67).

37. Sorella bianca in the simile (25.4) recalls the "bianca falda / di fredda neve" ("Io son venuto," 10-II); biancheggiar (25.9) echoes "bianchir de' colli" ("Al poco giorno," 2) and "tornar di bianco in verde" ("Al poco giorno," 11). The brina as an effect of winter recalls "Io son venuto," 47-48: "li fioretti . . . / li quai non poten tollerar la brina."

38. In addition, the shepherd's va-et-vient ( ritorna, riede ) contrasts with the speaker's "non son però tornato un passo a retro, / né vo' tonar" in "Io son venuto" (63-64), his fixed determination to ride out temporal cycles.

39. The petrose, according to Baker (1974 80), show an "earlier, inferior aesthetic . . . marked by egocentrism, preciosity, art for its own sake."

40. Hawkins 1980; Chiampi (1981 81-89) also discusses the melting hoarfrost as an image of deformatio in relation to both pilgrim and poet.

41. For an earlier statement of this view, see Terdiman 1973.

42. The anticipation of the mountain of Purgatory anticipates Ulisse's glimpse of the mountain in the next bolgia, 26.132-135.

43. Purgatorio 3.79-87 and 27.76-87 are similes of pastoral inspiration; Matelda's identification is at 28.139-44, poco tempo silvano at 32.100. For Eden and the Golden Age in the Commedia, see Mazzotta 1979 122-124, 221-225.

44. Hawkins 1980 5; and Chiampi 1981 84.

45. Baker (1974 84) cites Rabanus's gloss on frost as malitia perversorum. To be sure, Dante's canto of the thieves is rich in references to the act of writing and to its ephemerality; but as we hope to show elsewhere, this is part of a systematic investigation in Cantos 24-25 of the effects of time—the archthief—on all human works. The point of Dante's self-administered lesson is not the banal one that his own works are also ephemeral, but that the poet must, because embedded in time, inevitably rewrite the Word in his own unstable words. This sense of a genealogy of poets, parallel to the parody in the canto of human sexual genealogy, underlies the concern in the canto on the rivalry of Lucan and Ovid continue

      and accounts for Dante's paragone with the ancient poets. Dante must be a "thief" to repair the damage of time.

46. What the author of the Vita nuova finds in the book of his memory is, of course, the rubric "Incipit vita nova," a beginning. For the tabula rasa as an image of mind, see Aquinas 1959 171.

47. Although the apparent meaning here is that the sun's rays are cooled by Aquarius (the sun is not very hot in February), the idea of the sun's rays acquiring strength is compatible.

48. See esp. Adam's comparison of languages to foliage in Paradiso 26.132; and below, note 159. For the sun's production of new foliage ( novelle fronde ), see Paradiso 12.46-51.

49. Demonstrated by Baker (1974 82-83), who gives citations from Ristoro d'Arezzo's Composizione del mondo, showing that the impoverished villanello typifies the inhabitants of a Saturnine world.

50. See Chapter 3, p. 115 and note 57.

51. See Ptolemy 1940 79-81; and Macrobius 1970a 89 ("superius enim diximus in Capricorno Saturnum post omnes fuisse. ergo secunda adiectio eum primum fecit qui ultimus fuerat, ideo Aquarius qui Capricornum sequitur, Saturno datur").

52. The verb schiarire will return in rhyme in the heaven of Gemini, where it describes John the Evangelist as a sun ( schiarì, Paradiso 25.100). See below, pp. 252-253.

53. Chiampi (1981 87) notes the relation between the similes at 24.1-21 and 26.25-33. Cassell (1984 83-84, 160) reads the details of the simile in Canto 26 as a moralization on the punishment meted the false counsellors. There is no contradiction: what is, in Nature, a scene of benign repose may also be, in the writing of the contrapasso, a sign of condemnation.

54. For the significance of Saturn in Leo and the Golden Age, see Rabuse 1976 272-274 and 1978 19-21; also 1978 28-29, where he cites Isidore's justification ( De natura rerum liber 13.1) of the cold of Saturn as necessary for tempering the great heat of the heavens generally.

55. Macrobius 1970a 91-92 (1.22.1-8). Macrobius's language ("demersum est stringente perpetuo gelu") sounds like an account of the production of crystal.

56. See Chapter 2, pp. 82-84.

57. "Io son venuto," 10-12 ("E però non disgombra / un sol penser d'amore, ond'io son carco / la mente mia"), is echoed in Cocito by Camiscion de' Pazzi's reference to Sassol Mascheroni: "questi che m'ingombra / col capo sì, ch'i' non veggio oltre più" (32.63-64).

58. The repetition of freddo and freddura in Cocito, although the terms are never in rhyme, is a form of repercussio like that of the dominant rhyme-words in "Amor, tu vedi ben."

59. In "Così nel mio parlar," only the rhyming word rezzo (57; Inferno 32.73) connotes cold. But the rhyme with z, prominent in Cocito (see Inferno 32.68-75, on -azzi, -ezzo ) and identified as particularly harsh ("z . . . lictera non sine multa rigiditate profertur," De vulgari eloquentia I.xiii.5), imports the rigor of cold into the motives for linguistic harshness in the canzone. See, in "Così," -ezzi continue

      (14-18), -orza (25-26), -alza (49-50), -ezzo (53, 57), -erza (67, 68, 71, 72); and, not in rhyme: merzé, bellezza, durezza, guizzo, spezzan.

60. Dante draws on the commonplace of meter as a kind of enclosure or constriction of words within a boundary; see, for example, Latini 1948 3.10: "mais li sentiers de risme est plus estrois et plus fors, si comme celui ki est clos et fermés de murs et de palis."

61. See Benvenuto da Imola 1887 2:533: "potuit [Amphion] mirabili eloquentia sua cumulare et aggregare lapidem lapidi, et saxum saxo ad constructionem moeniorum thebanorum, et ego potero coniungere rithimum rithimo ad descriptionem istius pessimae civitatis."

62. See especially the insistence on the forms of convenire: converrebbe ( Inferno 32.2); convegno (32.135); "conviene ancor ch'altrui si chiuda" (33.24); "mi convegna" (33.117). For these forms and their meaning, see Shoaf 1988. Boitani (1981 85-86) notes that the poet's request for decorum (32.12) is echoed by Chaucer's recommendation that words be "cosyns to the dede." The source for both poets is Timaeus 29b. Boethius translates ( Consolatio 3.pr. 12): "Platone sanciente didiceris cognatos de quibus loquuntur rebus oportere esse sermones." In Caina, where treachery involves kinsmen, the principle is ironically applied.

63. Stazio refers to the Achilleid as "la seconda soma" ( Purgatorio 21.93); "ponderoso tema" occurs at Paradiso 23.64 (on which see pp. 243-244 below). Dante may be invoking, in his emphasis on the burden of narrating the center of the earth, Ovid's account of Numa ( Metamorphoses 15.1-2): "Quaeritur interea quis tantae pondera molis / sustineat tantoque queat succedere regi [to Romulus]"; and Boethius's version of the Hercules myth ( Consolatio 4 m. 7.29-31): "Ultimus caelum labor inreflexo / sustulit collo pretiumque rursus / ultimi caelum meruit laboris."

64. Not that the poet presents the pilgrim's response as other than extreme: it is itself an instance of the mimesis of the desperate conditions at the center of the cosmos.

65. See Durling 1975, 1981a, 1981b.

66. Boccaccio understood Limbo as corresponding to a place in the brain, and clearly understood this entire dimension of the Inferno; see his note on Limbo, where he cites Bernard Silvester's De universitate mundi (Boccaccio 1965 134-136).

67. Singleton 1966.

68. De Genesi ad litteram 11.24.31-25.32 ( PL 34.457-458); cf. Enarrationes in Psalmos 139.7 (in verses 5 and 6), 13 (in 10).

69. On the heaven of the moon, see Proto 1912; Nardi 1967a; Miller 1977; and Pastore Stocchi 1981—whose attempt at a transhistorical "Galilean" reading we find overstated (see esp. pp. 170-171).

70. "Quasi adamante che lo sol ferisse" ( Paradiso 2.33). Benvenuto da Imola (1887 4: 343) recalls that adamant is "parum cristallo obscurior." See also Marbod ( PL 171.1739): "De crystallorum natum sumptumque metallis / Hunc ita fulgentem crystallina reddit origo"); and Albertus Magnus (1967 70): "a little darker coloured than rock crystal."

71. See also Purgatorio 19.2-3, where the two cold planets are paired: "il freddo della luna / . . . e talor da Saturno." continue

72. Dante's downward gaze in Paradiso 22 includes mention of the "problem" that occupies Beatrice in Canto 2: "Vidi la figlia di Latona incensa / sanza quell'ombra che mi fu cagione / per che già la credei e rara e densa" (22.139-141).

73. The enigmatic verses referring to "la figlia del sole" ( Paradiso 27.136-138) have been assigned to the moon, with fresh arguments, by Pierotti 1981. Pierotti (p. 217) cites Bonaventure's Collationes in Hexaemeron 22.2, in which the filia solis, the sponsa of Canticle 6.9, is identified with both the Church and the Moon: "sicut luna est filia solis et recepit lumen ab eo, similiter militans Ecclesia a superna Ierusalem; unde Apostolus dicit eam matrem nostram, quia est mater influentiarum, quibus efficimur filii Dei."

74. Zahlten 1969 174 quotes the Imago mundi of Honorius of Autun, PL 172.138b: "Huius corpus est globosum, natura igneum, sed acqua permistum."

75. Aquinas, Summa theologica 1a, quaest. 68.art.4c; cited in Litt 1963 312.

76. Corpo appears in "Amor, tu vedi ben," as corpo freddo, to describe the water of tears; it is repeated in Paradiso 2 at verses 37 and 39 (twice) to describe the body of the pilgrim and that of the sphere.

77. For this explanation, widely disseminated, see Marbod ( PL 171.1766). Benvenuto (1887 4:344) has: "ostrea . . . concipiunt de rore coeli."

78. Dante's language reflects the biblical description of the heavens as the waters above; as Nardi showed (1944 307-13), Dante's reference to quest'acque in Paradiso 29.21 is to the Holy Spirit brooding over the waters above (see also 2.7: "l'acque ch'io prendo già mai non si corse"). The passage echoes, moreover, the imagery of Christian lyric in describing Mary's conception by the Holy Spirit—surely the ultimate example of how light informs matter, a re-evocation of the original fiat lux of Creation. See Adam of St. Victor "In natale sequentia" 16-18 (Spitzmuller 1971 638): "Nec crystallus rumpitur / nec in partu solvitur / pudoris signaculum"; and the anonymous sequence cited by Cosmo, quoted in Dante 1979b 3:33:

sicut vitrum radio 
solis penetratur 
inde tamen lesio 
nulla vitro datur 
sic immo subtilius 
matre non corrupta, 
Deus Dei filius 
sua prodit nupta.

79. "E indi l'altrui raggio si rifonde / così come color torna per vetro / lo qual di retro a sé piombo nasconde."

80. See Chapter 4, pp. 152-155; and, for the mirror imagery in "Io son venuto," Chapter 2, pp. 104-105. Dante describes the eye as a leaded mirror in Convivio 3.9.8.

81. Baldelli 1978a identifies such repetition as typical of the petrose.

82. The moon as mirror was of course commonplace: see Zahlten 1969 175; and Macrobius 1970a 75 ("luna speculi instar").

83. See pp. 208-209.

84. Miller (1977 263-266) suggests that the homely experiment also fore- soft

      shadows the pilgrim's final direct vision of the hypostatic union of the two natures in Christ at the very end of the poem, as well as the recurrence in the Paradiso of mirror imagery (p. 269); thus, the passage is microcosmic of the poem as well as of its putative object, the heavens (p. 276); the grammatical and logical orders are homologous with the cosmological. For other mirror imagery in the Paradiso that is cosmological, see 21.16-18, 28.4-15.

85. For this text, see Introduction, pp. 9-11.

86. For this analogy in Albertus Magnus, see Introduction, pp. 41-44, and Chapter 4, pp. 161-162.

87. Cf. Aquinas 1959 63: "Sed sicut oculus est pupilla et visus, et ibi anima et corpus, animal." For the problem implicit in Dante's analogy of the intelligences joined to the spheres like the soul joined in the body, see our remarks in Chapter 2, notes 67 and 75, and Introduction, note 87.

88. In "Donne ch'avete" the descent was precisely from soul to body; see Chapter 1, pp. 63-64.

89. Cf. Timaeus 47a-c; cited above, p. 11.

90. The words at the center of Beatrice's two speeches are caldo, neve, colore, freddo, luce, and aspetto.

91. The several mirrors to which Miller (1977) refers—the speculum inferius of creatures and the speculum superius of the divine mind—are thus implicit in the ascent performed by Beatrice. See esp. Miller 1977 269: "The ascending mirrors of knowledge imply the descending mirrors of being [in Alain's Anticlaudianus ]."

92. In his clarification of the moonspots, Nardi (1967c 5) observes that the question of diverse virtues which Dante raises applies to all the celestial spheres: "E questo fa sì che il problema delle macchie lunari accenni già ad implicare tutta la cosmologia dantesca."

93. See Nardi 1967 23-25, where the increasing determination of influence in each successive lower sphere is explained; the moon, the lowest planet, is logically subject to the formal virtues in the superior spheres. The variation of the moon's surface reflects the variation of all the spheres, which are partially diaphanous and partially lucent: "Tertium [the third heaven, subdivided into stars and planets] partim diaphanum et partim lucidum actu, quod vocant caelum sidereum" (Aquinas, Summa theologica 1a, quaest. 63, art. 4c; cited in Litt 1963 312).

94. "Infra lunam et aer et natura permutationis pariter incipiunt, et sicut aetheris et aeris, ita divinorum et caducorum luna confinium est" (Macrobius 1970a 75, 90).

95. In Inferno 10.80 it is, in Farinata's words, "la faccia della donna che qui [in Hell] regge."

96. Macrobius 1970a 58 (1.14.15).

97. Nardi 1967c 30-31; and Tateo 1970 656. See also Miller 1977 275-278.

98. Thus in 5.94 ( sì lieta ). See also 8.15; 14.79; 18.56 ( luci . . . gioconde ); 21.23; 23.59-60, 70; and 25.116.

99. Beatrice's eyes thus correspond, toute proportion gardée, to the nearly all-seeing deuspierres de cristal in Narcissus's fountain in Guillaume de Lorris's part continue

      of the Roman de la rose (1537-70); see our discussion, Chapter 4, p. 153 and note 35. In addition to the almost all-seeing eye crystals, Pézard (Dante 1965 1377-78) points to the discussion of moonspots in the Roman (16,833-80), although the explanation there given is that rejected by Dante. That Dante consulted the Rose in composing both "Amor, tu vedi ben" and Canto 2 of the Paradiso is therefore highly probable. For discussion, see Nardi 1967c 8; and Dante 1979b 3:35.

100. See Figure 7 (page 154) for references to the sun in "Amor, tu vedi ben."

101. Freccero 1986 221-244, is an indispensable account of the opening verses of Canto 10 and their implications for the heaven of the sun. For a numerological analysis of the same passage, see Hardt 1973 43-52. Hardt emphasizes the first seven tercets as a group and shows how the passage is organized in terms of seven, ten, and twenty-eight (a perfect number, like six).

102. The archetype of the distinction Beatrice draws at 10.53-54 between the planetary sun, "lo sol visibil," and the "sol degli angeli" that it signifies is the speculation of the Father in the Son, the uncreated Godhead in the incarnate Logos, as Thomas makes clear during his great cosmogony at 13.52-60 ("il suo raggiare aduna / quasi specchiato, in nove sussistenze, / eternalmente rimanendosi una," 58-60). The doubling of father and son and spiritual and sensible suns is Dante's adaptation of the Platonic World-Soul both contemplating its origin in the divine intellect, or noûs, and circling the created universe, drawing it back to its ideal archetype. This double duty is expressed in the double motions of Same and Other (see Dronke 1986 87). Dante's heaven of the sun is thus one of his most elaborate adaptations of the Platonic World-Soul to a Christian context. Indeed, nature, the sun, and the Spirit, the three most common "translations" for the anima mundi in Christian interpretation (Gregory 1958 123), are all implicit in the opening verses of Canto 10: spira at 2, ministro della natura at 28—thus they enclose the proem.

103. "These two motions, intellectual generation and the spiration of Love, volition, are the two motions of the Trinity which find their counterpart in the cosmos, 'dove l'un moto l'altro si percuote,' insofar as the cosmos can reflect the inner life of the Trinity" (Freccero 1986 241).

104. The rhymes gira, rote, percote, arte, dirama, torta, manco, mondano, and scriba point either directly to the celestial circles ( gira, rote, percuote, dirama, torta ) and their effects ( manco, mondano ) or to the idea of demiurgic and poetic craftsmanship ( arte, scriba ). Arte here is also the ars quaedam dei of Christ, of the Cross: the intersection of God and man; see Foster 1977 123. Other terms closely related to the movement of the circles are ordine, obliquo cerchio, strada, dritto, and torce. As Freccero (1986 258-271) shows, terza rima mediates discursive temporality and circular return—precisely the functions of Other and Same.

105. The construction of the whole passage in terms of tercets—units of two tercets apiece, together with a second section of three tercets (beginning with the central verse "Vedi come da indi si dirama") closed out with a two-tercet coda—is itself reminiscent of the structure of a canzone stanza: two equal pedes, a sirma beginning with concatenatio (which often corresponds to the central continue

      verse of the stanza, as in "Io son venuto"), and the tornata. The modularity of the canzone stanza, significantly expressed in the Paradiso in a passage describing the junction of Same and Other, is much in evidence here as a constructive principle.

106. Though less determinably, Dante's use of chiama in "Così" ("e'l sangue . . . / fuggendo corre verso / lo cor, che'l chiama") may be recalled in the use of chiama in rhyme ( Paradiso 10.15); the same may be said of percuotere ("Così," 35; Paradiso 10.9).

107. For the Timaeus on the irrationality of the Other, see Introduction, pp. 48-49.

108. The dance of the two groups is compared at 10.79 to the movement of girls performing a ballata, which includes both stanzas and a repeated ripresa or ritornello (Dante 1979b 3:164); in this allusion to a poetic form in the context of solar motion Dante would seem to recall Macrobius's observation that the movements of dancers and of strophic forms imitate the motions of the heavens (see Introduction, pp. 30-31).

109. The sun is the fourth planet but also the mystical center of the zodiac, within which dance the planets, the choreae stellarum of Calcidius. See Freccero 1986 227-231; and for the cosmic dance in Calcidius, Miller 1986 232-273.

110. Rabuse (1978 9) cites "summe fulgens, summe calens."

111. See 12.97, "Con dottrina e con volere insieme," said of Dominic.

112. Freccero (1986 242-243) notes that the parallel syntax of the Father's relation to the Son in the prologue ("l'amore che l'un e l'altro eternamente spira") suggests that the processions of the Word and of Love—in other words, of intellect and will—are the archetypes of the double solar motion, "l'un moto e l'altro," acted out in the double dance of spirits. For examples of the binary phrase, see 10.2 (God and Logos), 10.9 (two cosmic motions), 10.97-103 (the listing of the sapientes ), 10.142 (the parts of the clock), 11.35-37 (Seraphic Francis and Cherubic Dominic), 11.3-5 (the two circles as millstones), 12.34 (Francis and Dominic again), 12.126 (the two extreme factions of Franciscans), 13.16 (the rays of the two circles), 13.16-18 (the movement of the two circles), 13.34-36 (the two questions Thomas raises and answers), 13.45 (Christ and Adam, the two perfect men), and 14.67 (the two choirs, that is, the two circles).

113. See also tin tin (10.143); se'l vero è vero (10.113); foglio a foglio (12.121); giù d'atto in atto (13.62); uno due e tre . . . tre e'n due e'n uno (14.28-29).

114. The principle of two related motions also appears throughout in the form of coordinated terms ( risalir and discende [10.87]; estrema a intima [12.21]; surgere and cadere [13.142]; chiarezza e ardor [14.40]) and coordinated clauses (12.78-79; 13.52-53, 82-84, 97-100). A passage like 12.22-24 is constructed entirely of paired elements: "Poi che'l tripudio e l'altra festa grande, / sì del cantare e sì del fiammeggiarsi / luce con luce gaudiose e blande." The same may be said, on a much larger scale, for 13.1-27.

115. The two questions give rise in turn to a set of pairs and variations: Thomas repeats verbatim the phrase regarding the Dominicans that mystifies the pilgrim: "U' ben s'impingua, se non si vaneggia" (10.96, 11.39; first hemistich repeated also at 11.25). But he both repeats and twice varies the remark he continue

      makes about Solomon, passing from non surse il secondo (10.114; repeated once verbatim at 11.26) to non ebbe il secondo (13.47) and fu sanza pare (13.89).

116. "Dal centro al cerchio, e sì dal cerchio al centro" (14.1): the construction is a chiasmus. Dante certainly knew that the Greek X was named Chi (see p. 333 above for Calcidius's translation, which uses chi ). It is tempting to think that the superabundance of the word chi in Canto 11.4-8 (eight instances in anaphora) is a reflection of the Greek letter. The celestial Chi is a cosmic sign of the reconciliation, the joining ( horizon ) of divine and human in Christ; Christ in Greek begins with this letter. See Rabuse 1976 200; and Freccero 1986 242.

117. The Cristo rhyme-word concentrated at the center in Dominic's case is matched in the vita of Francis by distribution of Cristo to the center ("pianse con Cristo," 11.72), latter half (11.104-107), and early part ("nacque un sole," 11.50; this is also a sol oriens, Christ) of Francis's life. For the Cristo rhyme in the Paradiso, see Hardt 1973.

118. There are more than a dozen passages where the two biographies show parallels or resemblances in identically numbered verses: 35-39 and 46-51 (discussed in our text), 57, 59, 61-62 (the mystic marriages), 64, 68, 71-72 ( Cristo ), 79, 83, 100, and 107.

119. It is known that Dante drew the idea—and the phrasing—for the pairing of Francis and Dominic in terms of cardinal points from a prophecy of Joachim of Fiore: "erunt duo viri, unus hinc, alius inde" (see Dante 1979b 3:173). Joachim and Sigier form yet another pair: of heterodox figures.

120. Questo is thus a shifter here. In Dominic's case, opinion has varied between a summer solstitial sun—because of its lunga foga, its long course—and another equinox; but Moore (1903) shows that language and situation require a northwesterly, or late summer, sun, moving from the solstice toward the autumnal equinox.

121. In the biographies, the "arco della vita" of Francis is presented as a single day, that of Dominic as a season, from sowing to harvest. This portrayal corresponds to the emphasis on Francis himself as a sun, who generates, and on Dominic as a farmer, an agricola, who tills and weeds.

122. In a technical sense, the systematic linking of the sapienza (11.38, used only here and at 23.37, in Gemini) of the wisemen with eloquence is a function of the sphere of the sun, where the Son—Wisdom—is considered by the angelic order of the Virtues in relation to the Holy Spirit, the poet's dictator. See Foster 1977 121; also Freccero 1986 241-243; and Dronke 1986 94.

123. Dominic is the lover and champion, drudo, who defends his beloved as a paladino, giving rise to the series of metaphors of soldiery: militare (12.34); esercito, insegna (12.37); imperador, milizia (12.40); campione (12.43); drudo (12.55). The court of the sun is rich in cortesia; Dominic the paladin fights his battles on the field of honor ( campo , 12.108); the followers of Francis strip ( scalzasi, 11.83) before the beauty of Poverty, the bride. St. Thomas's phrase in rebuke of his order ("U' ben s'impingua, se non si vaneggia," 11.139) might have been drawn from an allegorical eclogue. On this last passage, see Dronke 1986 86, associating Thomas's diction with the language of the Song of Songs.

124. The figure of the bride—Poverty and Faith—in the lives of the reform- soft

      ers derives from the Song of Songs, long viewed by exegetes as an allegory of Christ's love for the Church. For the church as bride, cf. 10.140 ("la sposa di Dio") and the sposa (Poverty) in the narrative of Francis's life (11.32, 84). See Priest 1972; Freccero 1986 232; and Dronke 1986 94-96, 100-102. See also Dronke 1986 101 on Richard of St. Victor's allegorical exposition of the Song of Songs.

125. Francis makes the earth feel his virtue as he rises from his birthplace ("Non era ancor molto lontan dall'orto, / ch'ei cominiciò a far sentir la terra / della sua gran virtute alcun conforto," 11.55-57), while Dominic's conception and birth are evidence of the virtue of the sun ("e come fu creata, fu repleta / sì la sua mente di viva virtute, / che nella madre lei fece profeta," 12.58-60) and he is defined as reflected light ( splendore, 11.39).

126. Such an inference regarding the virtù and sapientia of the poet demonstrated in the art of the heaven itself is not without precedent in commentary on the canto. Readers have noted that Dante's inclusion of figures like Boethius and Sigieri, who were victims of injustice, echoes his own historical status as exile and victim; see Dante 1979b 3:157.

127. The dominant pair, Adam and Christ, the creature and his incarnate Creator, mark the possible limit of human virtue ("quantunque alla natura umana lece / aver di lume, tutto fosse infuso / da quel valor che l'uno e l'altro fece," 13.43-45); in 13.82-84, Thomas refers to the Incarnation, the supreme act of fecundation: "Così fu fatta già la terra degna / di tutta l'animal perfezione; / così fu fatta la Vergine pregna." For the pilgrim's infusion by the Apostles in Gemini, see below, pp. 242-244.

128. See Ferrante 1984 273-274: "In the Sun, which is the turning point in the journey, Dante reaches the climax of diversity, the greatest number of individual souls to be seen or named in any sphere of Paradise, and at the same time the beginning of a special unity, the appearance of all the souls in one symbolic figure, in this case concentric circles."

129. The sun's generative power is at its strongest at the time of the pilgrim's journey, when it is near the vernal equinox. In the heaven of the sun, this power is demonstrated by the richness of reference to flowers, garlands, vines, roots, shrubs, fruits, stocks, and gardens, as well as to pasturing and husbandry: e.g., infiora (10.91, 14.12); serto (10.102); pianta (11.137); rosa (12.19, 13.135); ghirlanda (12.19); fronde (12.46); agricola (12.67); orto (12.68, 103); vigna (12.86); vignaio (12.87); seme, fascia (12.96); sterpi (12.100); arbuscelli (12.105); coltura (12.119); paglia (13.36); seme (13.69); legno, specie (13.70); biade (13.132); prun (13.134); agno (10.94); peculio (11.124). The sun, like Gemini, is a garden; as a vinekeeper ( vignaio ), Dominic cooperates with sunlight in producing healthy fruit: "gran dottor si feo, / tal che si mise as circuir la vigna, / che tosto imbianca, se il vignaio è reo" (12.85-87). For the topos of the garden in relation to the monastic and fraternal orders and the cantos of Francis and Dominic, see Mazzotta 1979 109-117, with scrupulous résumés of previous readings of these cantos; see also Ferrante 1984 298.

130. Timaeus 36b (Corford 1937 142); and see Freccero 1986 77.

131. See Chapter 2, pp. 92-96. As if to insist on this point, Dante uses continue

      meare to describe illumination (in the sun, 13.54; and in Gemini, 23.79), rather than as the term for the descent and return of the soul, as in Macrobius 1970a 48 (speaking of the gates of souls, located where the Milky Way crosses the zodiac): "per has portas animae de caelo in terras meare et de terris in caelum remeare creduntur." For discussion of Paradiso 4.49-60, see Freccero 1986 223-224.

132. For this order in the sestina, see Chapter 3, note 57.

133. In addition to "O qui perpetua," see Boethius Consolatio 4 m. 6.44-48:

Hic est cunctis communis amor 
Repetuntque boni fine teneri, 
Quia non aliter durare queant, 
Nisi converso rursus amore 
Refluant causae quae dedit esse.

134. Dante lists the pilgrimage sites in a famous passage (chap. 40) of the Vita nuova; see Dante 1984 237-241.

135. In Macrobius 1970a 48, the Milky Way, located in the starry sphere, is the precise point whence just souls descend and where they return, hinc profecti hunc revertuntur. For Macrobius's error in placing the crossing of the equator and Milky Way, see Chapter 2, p. 91 and note 60.

136. In his discussion of this word in Convivio 4.6.3, Dante does not mention, but certainly knew, Uguccione's derivation of auctor from augere, to increase. On this etymology, see Toynbee 1902 102.

137. Echoes of Virgil, Statius, Horace, and Lactantius have been noted in the beautiful verses on the mother bird in Canto 23.1-12; see Dante 1979b 3:368.

138. At 24.139-141, Dante's recitation of the Athanasian creed, he refers to the truth of the faith as "come stella in ciel in me scintilla"; at 29.87, the truth of Beatrice's explanation shines like a star, "come stella in ciel il ver si vide."

139. Sapegno (Dante 1957b 1090) cites Daniel 12:3: "Qui autem docti fuerint, fulgebunt, quasi splendor firmamenti; et qui ad iustitiam erudiunt multus, quasi stellae in perpetuas aeternitates."

140. For other texts, see Wingell 1981. Wingell (pp. 130-132) documents the association of the stars with the virtues and with the gifts of the Spirit, represented in the Purgatorio by a candelabrum Dante compares (after Apocalypse 1: 20) to the seven stars of the Wain ( Purgatorio 30.1).

141. Bosco and Reggio (Dante 1979b 3:389) recall that Mary is stella matutina in the litanies. The Virgin as bel zaffiro (23.101) drives home her stellar status, for medieval "sapphire" was usually lapis lazuli, whose field of blue speckled with iron pyrites makes it look like a sky strewn with stars (thus inzaffira ). See Isidore Etymologiarum liber 16.9.2 ( PL 82.574b): "habens pulveres aureos sparsos."

142. Dante names the sun in Gemini eight times—three more than in the heaven of the sun.

143. "Un sol che tutte quante l'accendea, / come fa'l nostro le viste superne" (23.29); "il bel giardino / che sotto i raggi di Cristo s'infiora" (23.71-72); "Come a raggio di sol, che puro mei / per fratta nube" (23.79-80). Each heaven, more- soft

      over, includes a passage where the principal luminaries—sun, moon, and stars—are in effect represented together (10.64-69, 76; 23.25-30). As Scaglione (1967 157) notes, the collocation evokes Revelations 8:12; it is also hexaemeral (Genesis 1:14-17)—for which see Zahlten 1969 174-176.

144 . Girare appears five times in the heaven of the sun and eight times in Gemini, out of a total of twenty-three instances; poli appears as a rhyme only at 10.78 and 24.11, where it rhymes with oriuoli, a variant of orologio, which appears at 10.139 (there are no other instances in the poem); circulare appears only at 13.21 ("che circulava il punto dov'io era") and 23.109 ("Così la circulata melodia"); corona, which appears twice in the sun (10.65, 11.97), appears also at 23.95; ballo appears only at 10.79 and 25.103. For the cosmic dance in the Paradiso, see Miller 1977 276-277.

145. The scholastic terminology and university pedagogy of the exams echoes the pilgrim's discussions with the sapientes in the heaven of the sun. Note the use of sapienza, for example, used in the Paradiso only at 11.38 (of Solomon) and at 23.37; and of sillogizzare and sillogismo, both used in the Commedia only in the sun (10.138, 11.2) and in Gemini (24.77, 24.94).

146. For military metaphors, compare primipilo (24.59), baron (24.115, 26.22; of the apostles), principe (25.23), stuolo (25.25), conti (25.42), and imperator (25.38) with the language used of Francis and Dominic; see above, note 123.

147. Beatrice, the tenor of the simile that opens Canto 23, is awaiting the rising/noon sun of Christ, just as in the heaven of the sun the Church, bride of the Song of Songs, "mattina lo sposo perche l'ami." For Beatrice's relation to the Bride, see Freccero 1986 232, 237.

148. For the double triumphs, see Gmelin 1954 3:406-408, 414-415.

149. For the triumphs, see note 148; the militant pilgrim is at 25.52, 57.

150. Peter and Paul (24.62); John and James (25.94); master and disciple (25.64: "come discente ch'a dottor seconda"). Dante, of course, thought James the Great and John the Evangelist to be brothers, the sons of Zebedee (Matthew 5:21). Dragonetti (1968 355) discusses the heaven of Gemini as a union of heaven and earth represented by Castor and Pollux; see also p. 369, where Dante's adjective dia (26.11) is linked to the Greek prefix signifying "double" or "twin." See above, pp. 361-362.

151. See Convivio 2.14.3-5. The number 1,022 is broken down into digits that reflect local motion (2), alteration (10), and growth (1,000), all of which concern physics. The Milky Way signifies metaphysics because the stars that are the source of its light are difficult to see. In the heaven of Gemini, the presence of James, "per cui si vicita Galicia" (25.18), alludes to the Milky Way, one name of which is la via di Sa' Iacopo. In addition, the souls are placed around fixed poles in 24.11, while the text alludes to the southern pole by positing a sun in Cancer in midwinter (25.101). Special mention is reserved for the precession of the equinoxes and the unwintering of January, some forty lines after the pilgrim and Beatrice depart from the fixed stars for the Primum Mobile (27.142-144). The relation of the heaven of the stars to the sun reiterates the links: the sun is the chariot that, in one explanation Dante cites ( Convivio 2.14.5), ran amok and continue

      burned the sky, creating the Milky Way; fifteen of the twenty-four stars that make up the imaginary constellation in the extended simile of Paradiso 13 are drawn precisely from Alfraganus's list of 1,022 used in the Convivio passage on the fixed stars; and the same simile imagines the northern, the visible, pole.

152. Blasucci (1969 19) lists these among examples of Dante's "energy."

153. "I lupi che . . . danno guerra" (25.6); "lupi rapaci in vesta di pastor" (27.55). For the biblical sources, see Dante 1979b 3:448-449.

154. Both passages depend on Ars poetica, 38-40, comparing the poetic subject to a physical burden: "Sumite materiam vestris, qui scribitis, aequam / viribus et versate diu, quid ferre recusent, / quid valeant umeri." This is attributed to "Magister noster Oratius" and cited at De vulgari eloquentia 2.iv.4 (Dante 1979 164).

155. Wingell (1981 128-129) cites, in another context, Augustine's contrast of the dark, chilled, fallen angels ( tenebrosi frigidique ) with the warm breath of Pentecostal inspiration.

156. Mary's triumph, like that of Christ, is elaborately symmetrical, a textual circle. We note here a few examples: quivi at verseheads at 23.73 and 23.136; the "splendori . . . fulgorati" of the spirits (at 23.82) are balanced by the candori of those at 23.124, and the speaker's desire for Mary (at 23.88-89) by that of the souls reaching out at 23.121-124. Qualunque melodia (23.97) is paired with the circulata melodia of 23.109. There is a parallel between circling and crowning at 23.101, 106 ( coronava, girerommi ). The central five tercets, finally, are marked by assonance on i-a: tira, lira, inzaffira, dia, melodia, Maria (Baldelli 1973 947).

157 . Ploia echoes its use in the heaven of the sun ("lo refrigerio dell'etterna ploia," 14.27) and pingue the use of impingua at 10.96, 11.25, and 11.139.

158. De avi Phoenice, 41-42; cited in Dante 1979b 3:368.

159. Adam's discussion of languages as leaves on a tree, "come fronda in ramo" ( Paradiso 26.135-138), adapting Horace's figure in Ars poetica, 60-62, is continuous with the identification of poetry with the leaves of the laurel ("la fronda peneia," as in Paradiso 1.25-33); see the related images of poetic fame as erba in Purgatorio 11.115-117. In Paradiso 26.64-66, the pilgrim proclaims his love for all the leaves in God's garden: "le fronde onde s'infronda tutto l'orto / de l'ortolano etterno"—that is, all the creatures. For the recurring metaphor of infrondescence, see Dragonetti 1968 347-357.

160. For the alba, see Saville 1972; for the poet in relation to birdsong, see "Io son venuto," 27-39, with our discussion in Chapter 2, pp. 76-79.

161. See Introduction, pp. 34-35; for a full discussion of this poem in Dante's Commedia (not including the allusion here), see Moleta 1979-80.

162.   .

Così la donna mia stava eretta 
   e attenta, rivolta inver la plaga 
   sotto la quale il sol mostra men fretta.

      Beatrice is looking at the location of the solstitial sun at noon, for the sun shows least haste both when it is near the meridian and when it apparently reverses direction, in the ecliptic, at the solstices, especially the summer solstice. That continue

      Christ is at solstice and the planetary sun at equinox is one measure by which Christ transcends the planetary sun; but in another sense the two suns, planetary and supracelestial, are complementary, paired suns, the sun of heaven and the sun of earth.

163. Dante uses almi of the apostles at 25.138.

164. "Come fantolin che inver' la mamma / tende le braccia, poi che'l latte prese" (23.122). For Beatrice and the Virgin linked by the similes of Canto 23, see Scaglione 1967 167.

165. Dragonetti (1968 362) points out the etymological play between Galassia and Galicia: the relation of east and west, sunrise (Galilee) and sunset (Galicia), reiterates the relation of Francis and Dominic in the heaven of the sun. For Macrobius (1970a 48), the milkiness of the galaxy is consonant with its role as the gate of souls: "ideo primam nascentibus offerri ait lactis alimoniam, quia primus eis motus a lacteo incipit in corpora terrena labentibus."

166. In Dante's first eclogue to Giovanni del Virgilio, the allegory of poems milked from the Muses' breasts is frequent: del Virgilio's first eclogue is "lituris / Pyerio demulsa sinu" (1-2); del Virgilio's poetic studies have made him full and eloquent, "lacte canoro / viscera plena ferens et plenus usque palatum" (31-32); finally, the first ten cantos of the Paradiso are ten vascula of milk to be sent to del Virgilio drawn from an ewe lactis abundans (59-64; Dante 1979e).

167. For the propitious moment of the Incarnation, see Monarchia 1.11.1-2. At Convivio 1.21, after describing the conception and development of the embryo, Dante offers that if the heavens were at their best, the child born under them "sarebbe un altro Iddio incarnato." The theologians, orbiting the pilgrim, also foreshadow Gabriel's circulation around Mary. We recall the description, in the sun, of how matter was prepared for the union of divine and human: "Così fu fatta già la terra degna / di tutta l'animal perfezione; / così fu fatta la Vergine pregna" (13.82-84).

168. Gabriel's song is foreshadowed by the tone of Solomon's voice in the heaven of the sun ("una voce modesta, / forse qual fu dall'angelo a Maria," 14.35-36). The echo of Solomon in Gabriel links the language of the Canticle in the heaven of the sun, used to celebrate the union of the Church with the bridegroom and his followers Francis and Dominic, with the divine marriage of the Holy Spirit and the flesh of Mary in the heaven of the stars. Sposa, which appears in the sun at 10.140, 11.32 and 84 (Poverty), and 12.43—all but once of the bride of Christ—appears three times in Gemini (25.111, 26.93, 27.40); its other uses in the Paradiso are at 31.3 and 32.128.

169. In Convivio 4.21.10 Dante refers to the womb as recettaculo (4) and to the dwelling of the soul in heaven (the passage is translated from Cicero) as abitaculo (4.21.9). Cf. the Virgin's womb as albergo of Christ (23.105), a term that also reflects liturgical language.

170. Rabuse (1978 19) cites Gregory the Great ( Moralia, Ep. miss . 12 c.55 n.64) on the meaning of the womb in sacred speech: "in sacro eloquio ventris vel uteri nomine mens solet intelligi." break

171. As Beatrice says of the pilgrim in Purgatorio 30.109-114:

Non pur per ovra delle rote magne, 
   che drizzan ciascun seme ad alcun fine 
   secondo che le stelle con compagne, 
ma per larghezza di grazie divine, 
   che sì alti vapor hanno a lor piova, 
   che nostre viste là non van vicine.

      The pilgrim's destiny is a result of planetary influence, free will, and grace.

172. The crossing of the Milky Way with the zodiac is the gate through which souls enter time. Macrobius put the gate at the solstitial points of Capricorn and Cancer, but in fact the Milky Way traverses the Zodiac at Gemini and Libra (see Chapter 2, note 60).

173. In the heaven of Mars, where the pilgrim's baptistery is "il bel ovil di San Giovanni," Florence is remembered as sober and chaste "nella sua cerchia antica" and the cradles ( le culle ) carefully tended by loving nurses.

174. For the sun in the Ram, see Currado Malaspina's prophetic words (echoing "Io son venuto") to the pilgrim in Purgatorio (8.133-139):

Ed elli: "Or va; che 'l sol non si recorca 
   sette volte nel letto che 'l Montone 
   con tutti e quattro i piè cuopre ed inforca, 
che cotesta cortese oppinïone 
   ti fia chiavata in mezzo della testa 
   con maggior chiovi che d'altrui sermone, 
se corso di giudicio non s'arresta."

      See also Ecloga 2.1-2 (Dante 1979e): "Velleribus Colchis prepes detectus Eous/ alipedesque alii pulcrum Titana ferebant."

175. The horoscope of Florence, which began its new year on March 25, ab Incarnatione, may also be implicit: March 25 was the ideal date of the city's foundation; Dante's crowning and the city's birthday would represent, in their simultaneity, a reconciliation. Since in Dante's time most baptisms occurred at Easter or just after, Dante's commemoration of his baptism would likely fall between the possible dates of Easter—in other words, almost entirely within the sign of Aries.

176. For a reading of this passage with emphasis on the pilgrim's fulfillment of his prophetic destiny, see Sarolli 1971 381-419; see also Mazzotta 1979 116-123.

177. This conception of the poem as including both the astricolae and the infera regna recurs in Dante's first eclogue to Giovanni del Virgilio (48-50), precisely where Tityrus (Dante) is considering the question of poetic crowning.

178. Florence is the nido from which Dante will chase the two Guidi in Purgatorio 11.99.

179. Compare the similarly hypothetical "S'io torni mai," at the pilgrim's entrance to Gemini, and "S'io avessi le rime aspre e chiocce," beginning Canto 32: the first, appropriately yearning in its hope of heaven; the second, a modesty continue

      topos disclaiming a skill subsequently demonstrated. See Bosco and Reggio's remarks in Dante 1979b 3:411.

180. As the commentators note, this image also echoes the imagined "ascension" of Beatrice in Vita nuova 23.25.

181.   .

Ficca di retro a li occhi tuoi la mente, 
   e fa di quelli specchi a la figura 
   che 'n questo specchio ti sarà parvente 
                   (21.16-18)

      is echoed by

      For Jacob's ladder as a model of the angelic hierarchies, see Rabuse 1972 62, quoting Simon of Tournai: "Hac distinctione angelorum textitur aurea catena hominum sive scala Iacob in qua vidit angelos ascendentes et descendentes."

182. Moore (1895 95) notes the relation of svernare to Dante's other coinages like sfogliare ( Purgatorio 23.58), smagare, etc. See also Blasucci 1969 17-18. We prefer ruggire to the more frequent raggiare because of the biblical parallels: Jeremiah 25: 30, Hosea 11.10, Joel 3.16, and Amos 1.2; the last two are accounts of the dies Domini.

183. For parallels to sbernare and the implications of Aries here, including the evocation of the lyric Natureingang, see Contini 1970b 212-213; and Kirkpatrick 1978 162-166.

184. See Epistola 13.68 for Dante's etymological discussion of empireo ("et dicitur empyreum, quod est idem quod celum igne sui ardoris flagrans"). For Dante's use of cristallino for the Primum Mobile, see Convivio 2.14.19.

185. Dante's presentation of John between references to winter ("l'inverno," 25.102; "Capra del ciel," 27.69) is perhaps less arbitrary than it seems. Dante's accumulation of apostles in Gemini includes Peter in person and Paul by reference (Peter's caro frate of 24.62); the pair have their festival on June 29, not long after the summer solstice. Although the feast of John the Baptist —implicitly remembered in Paradiso 25.8-9—is June 24, even nearer the solstice, the feast of John the Evangelist is on December 27, near the winter solstice (Cattabiani 1988 236-238). Dante's ideal solstice in Gemini thus includes the Evangelist, feasted near the winter solstice, made into a sun that fills the whole year with light.

186. In his De universo ( PL 111.472), Rabanus Maurus, after showing that crystal signifies baptism and the immutability of the angels, concludes: "Aqua ergo in crystallum versa est quando corruptionis eam infirmitatem, per resurrectionem suam ad incorruptionis firmitatem est immutata."

187. The three substances named suggest a gamut concluding in cristallo. continue

      Glass is an artificial gem finest when most like a crystal: "Maximus tamen honor in candido vitro, proximoque in crystalli similitudine" (Isidore Etymologiarum liber 16.4, PL 82.538a). Amber is an organic gem struck into lapidary quality by the heat of the sun; as a resin it is a gum, and thus the etymon ofgemma: "Gemmae vocatae, quod instar gumi transluceant" ( Etymologiarum liber 16.6.3). As electrum, moreover-often confused with the metal alloy—it was mystically understood as the union of the two natures in Christ; see Rabanus De universo 15 ( PL 111.473): "nisi quod in electro aurum et argentum miscentur, ut res una ex metallis duobus fiat, in qua et per argentum auri claritas temperatur, et per claritatem auri species clarescat argenti. In redemptore autem nostro utraeque naturae, id est divinitas et humanitas, inconfuse atque inseparabiliter sibimet sunt unitae."

188. For the quotation, see Convivio 2.3.9. Dragonetti (1968 379) reads cristallo as Cristo-stallo and argues for the progressive crystallization of the whole cosmos, enveloped as it is by the maggior corpo of the First Heaven. In this context, does Dante's ambra recall Arnaut's sestina rhyme-word cambra?

189. Compare, with respect to poems as charms, Virgil's Eclogue 8, where adynata and spells ( carmina ) combine in the speakers' attempts to influence their lovers.

190. In effect, then, the raggiare of the heavens would seem to invoke the apokatastasis, the return of all the heavens to their original positions at the last Great Year, an event traditionally associated with cataclysm and upheaval. Servius notes, in his glosses on Virgil's Fourth Eclogue, that the return of the Golden Age is one of the topics of the apokatastasis (Thilo and Hagen 1923-27 3/1:45). See Macrobius 1970a 128-129 (Macrobius follows Cicero in thinking the Great Year to be fifteen thousand years).

191. It might be supposed that such a gem would be incised with the figure of Gemini, the poet's natal sign. Albertus Magnus (1967 141) notes that stones carved with the Gemini predispose wearers "toward friendship and righteousness and good manners, diligent observation of laws, and concord."

192. Dante probably associated Plato's Great Year ( Timaeus 39d) with the period of the precession of the equinoxes that he invokes in Paradiso 27, as does Macrobius ( Commentarii 2.11 [1970a 128-129]). His conception of the heaven of the stars as representative of metaphysics ( Convivio 2.14.11) rests on the notion, also mentioned by Macrobius, that the precessional motion of the stars is invisible to the eye ("quasi ci tiene ascoso").

193. Dante refers to the precession of the equinoxes at Convivio 2.14.11-13, in his discussion of the sphere of the fixed stars: "E per lo movimento quasi insensibile che fa da occidente in oriente per uno grado in cento anni significa le cose incorruttibili, le quali ebbero da Dio cominciamento e creazione e non averanno fine; chè fine de la circulazione è redire a uno medesimo punto, al quale non tornerà questo cielo, secondo questo movimento. Chè dal cominciamento del mondo poco più de la sesta parte è volto; e noi siamo già ne l'ultima etade del secolo, e attendemo veracemente la consumazione del celestiale movimento." See Pecoraro 1987 25-29. break

194. In his treatise on engraved gems, Albertus Magnus accounts for their loss of power over time (see Introduction, note 93).

195. See Marbodus ( PL 171.1770a): "veras a falsis labor est discernere gemmas."

196. Divellere also might afford a rhyme for the last tercet in each cantica, which always concludes on the word stelle. There is none such in the Inferno (the rhyme is belle ), but in the Purgatorio the rhyme is novelle (33.143) and in the Paradiso, velle (33.143), a Latinism for the will—no form of divellere, then, but a kind of homonymic rhyme echoing the divellere/ vello nexus noted in Inferno 34 and in Gemini. If our criteria seem too permissive, it might help to add that Dante insists on the etymological play, both at the end of the Purgatorio ("rifatto sì come piante no velle / rino vellate di no vella fronda," 33.143-44), carefully echoing pianta and rinacque in Purgatorio 1.135-36, where avellere appears (1.136), and at the end of the Paradiso (33.141-43), where emphasis is on forms related to volere and alliteration on v: "sua voglia venne. / A l'alta fantasia qui mancò possa; / ma già vol g eva il mio disio e'l velle."

197. Virgil uses avellere (6.143) and convellere (6.149); Dante's debt is most immediate in the parallels between the replacement of the rush plucked in Purgatorio 2 and that of the Golden Bough: "primo avulso non deficit alter / aureus" ( Aeneid 6.143-144).

198. See Ecloga 2.48-50 (Dante 1979e):

      cum mundi circumflua corpora cantu
      astricoleque meo velut infera regna patebunt,
      devincire caput hedera lauroque iuvabit.

1. It is on this single passage, for instance, that Mengaldo rests his assertion that the De vulgari eloquentia "assigns the limits" of the petrose (Dante 1979a 8, 234-235).

2. Mengaldo (ibid. 145 n .9) notes the important parallel in Convivio 1.5.

1. It is on this single passage, for instance, that Mengaldo rests his assertion that the De vulgari eloquentia "assigns the limits" of the petrose (Dante 1979a 8, 234-235).

2. Mengaldo (ibid. 145 n .9) notes the important parallel in Convivio 1.5.

3. On the ceremony of investiture, see M. Bloch 1939; Keen 1984; and Flori 1976, 1978, and 1979.

4. The paragon of knighthood, Lancelot, on the day of his knighting, took on two very difficult quests, according to the Vulgate Cycle (that Dante knew well the Livres de Lancelot dou Lac is guaranteed by his references to its details in Inferno 5 and Paradiso 16); the circumstances of the second are illuminating. During the feast in Lancelot's honor a knight enters, sent by the Lady of Nohaut, beleaguered by an enemy of hers, to ask King Arthur, her liege lord, to send her a champion. Lancelot breaks in and asks to be assigned this mission. King Arthur at first refuses, saying it is most dangerous and requires an experienced knight. Now—and this is the point that interests us—Lancelot reminds Arthur that this is the first request he has made since his knighting and that if Arthur should deny it, his new knight will be greatly shamed before all men (Micha 1978-83 8:260-283). Here is the sense of the term prerogativa —that is what Lancelot claims, a request ( rogativa ) that takes precedence over other requests. It is not a matter of indulging the new knight, but of allowing him the continue

      scope to prove his worth, as, of course, Lancelot amply does. And Dante, too, in our view.

5. No one supposes that the second nisi forte clause characterizes a fault; Mengaldo comments: "La lenium asperorumque rithimorum mixtura  . . . risponde al canone fondamentale del De vulgari eloquentia" (Dante 1979a 235 n .4). It is true that Dante identifies "ipsa inutilis equivocatio" as always a fault; and the traditional view has no doubt rested on the assumption that Dante is referring to "Amor, tu vedi ben" there also. That is by no means the sense of the passage, however, and to take "ipsa inutilis equivocatio" as referring to "Amor, tu vedi ben" requires us to assume that the equivocal rhymes in that poem are "useless"—a view we argued against in Chapter 4.

      The only other critic, to our knowledge, who interprets the reference to "Amor, tu vedi ben" in a positive light is Bernhard König (1983 246): "I see no distancing in this sentence, but rather a proud assertion of the exceptional character of the canzone ["Amor, tu vedi ben"]. It is the product of what was in a sense a heroic effort, such as is possible only once in a lifetime, when all one's powers are at highest tension. . . . Dante is not criticizing his unusual rhyme scheme; rather he is justifying it as part of an unprecedented poetic project, whose uniqueness the concluding verses of the canzone had already proclaimed." This seems to us the correct view.

6. See the material assembled by Keen (1984), esp. pp. 80-81, the entirely characteristic urgings given new knights: "Seek therefore this day to do deeds that will deserve to be remembered, for every new knight should make a good beginning" (from a thirteenth-century romance) and "it is my wish that this day you shall show such prowess as it befits you to show: that is why I have set you in the van of the battle: there so do that you may win honor" (from Froissart).

7. See Rabuse 1957; Schnapp 1987.

8. Paradiso 25.2 identifies the poema as one "al quale ha posto mano e cielo e terra," and in Paradiso 27.64-66 St. Peter urges Dante to speak: "e tu, figluol, che per lo mortal pondo / ancor giù tornerai, apri la bocca, / e non asconder quel ch'io non ascondo." But these and other instances fall far short of the explicit pronouncements of Cacciaguida, which is the final answer to the question Dante puts to Virgilio in Inferno 2: "Ma io perché venirvi?" It is really the unique undertaking of the poem that explains Dante's unique journey; Beatrice's explanation in Purgatorio 30.136-138 is on a different allegorical level:

Tanto giù cadde, che tutti argomenti 
    a la salute sua eran già corti, 
    fuor che mostrarli le perdute genti.

9. As Dante knew, men were often knighted on the eve of a battle; see Keen 1984 79-80.

10. Cf. Enciclopedia dantesca, s.v. "addobbare" (1:52): "Chiosa Benvenuto: 'id est qui ita adornas istos splendore!'; e il Buti: 'Che sì li adorni questi spiriti di splendore!'. Ma alla scelta della parola D., oltre che dalla rima, fu forse tratto dalla conoscenza della sua origine (francese, adober, 'armare cavaliere'); si tratta infatti di anime di combattenti per la fede." break

      Schnapp misleadingly (perhaps inadvertently) conflates knightly investiture and assumption of the cross: he writes that addobbare is "a highly specialized term like the related verb 'decussare,' denoting the symbolic act known in the Middle Ages as 'cruce signari': an imprinting of the sign of the cross on the crusader's scapulary, signifying his transformation into a knight of the Holy Cross" (1987 137). I have found no instance of adober/addobbare in the sense of cruce signare, unless it is Dante's own metaphor here in Paradiso 15. In the rites of taking on the cross ("cruce signari") printed by Andrieu, Brundage, and Pennington, no indication is given of restriction to knights. There are no references to the military purposes of crusades (only in several of the services are there even the vaguest references to the possibility of combat: generally the prayer is that the pilgrim may voyage and return home in peace ), nor to the social status of the pilgrim, and, as Brundage points out, the ceremonies for taking on the cross grew out of the generic rites for pilgrims (not always or even principally pilgrims bound for the Holy Land; see Brundage 1966 289 n .1), in which the pilgrims' staffs and scripts were blessed. None of the services includes a symbolic blow like that of confirmation or knightly investiture. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, persons of both sexes and all social stations took the cross, including archbishops, friars, and cooks, and, among the military, squires and footsoldiers; see Powell 1986 20-21 (and see his list of known participants in the Fifth Crusade, 209-246); and Housley 1986 123-156 (I owe these references to the kindness of Richard Mather). That the ideas of Crusade and pilgrimage are closely related and in some respects inseparable is, of course, evident. But knightly investiture and becoming a pilgrim or Crusader should be sharply distinguished.

11. Cacciaguida's use of the term is connected with his characterization of earlier, simpler Florence within the circle of its walls, in which women did not wear (rich) cinture (15.97-102). See the survey of Dante's use of cingere in Enciclopedia dantesca 2: 5-6. It is used again of knighting in Paradiso 8.146; particularly interesting is the parallel with Purgatorio 1.133: "Quivi mi cinse sì com'altrui piacque" (with the reed of humility; see below, note 19).

12. Privilegio refers to the prerogatives of rank, as well as to the right to quarter one's arms with those of the gran barone; cf. Enciclopedia dantesca, s.v. "privilegio."

13. There is also allusion, of course, to Matthew 10: 33, 16:24, etc., as already in the symbolic taking on of the cross of the Crusader. See Paradiso 14.103-108:

Qui vince la memoria mia lo 'ngegno; 
   ché quella croce lampeggiava Cristo, 
   sì ch'io non so trovare essempro degno; 
ma chi  prende sua croce  a segue Cristo, 
   ancor mi scuserà di quel ch'io lasso, 
   vedendo in quell' albor balenar Cristo.

      One may note that this is a very good example of nonuseless equivocal rhyme. Schnapp (1987) has a good discussion of Dante's taking on his personal cross. break

14. Cf. the allusion to Charles of Valois in Purgatorio 20.73-75:

Sanz' arme n'esce e solo con la  lancia 
    con la qual  giostrò  Giuda, e quella ponta 
    sì, ch'a Fiorenza fa scoppiar la pancia.

      This is, of course, the same blow to which Dante refers in Paradiso 17, and it is closely related to the issue of Guido Cavalcanti's exile and death and thus to the blow that strikes Cavalcante in Inferno 10.

      One may add that Cacciaguida's urgings that Dante make all his vision manifest compare the poem to a wind that strikes the highest towers (lines 133-134), "che le più alte cime più percuote." Very deeply submerged in the blow of that wind is the blow of the metaphorical knightly lance.

      Dante uses the imagery of knightly combat in various other passages of the Commedia, whether explicitly or implicitly. Explicit is Statius's reference ( Purgatorio 22.42) to the "giostre grame" of Inferno 7, which reveals the implicit metaphor in "percoteansi incontro" ( Inferno 7.28); closely related are the implicit references to the cranes as like knights in battle formation in Purgatorio 26.43-46 and Inferno 5.46-49 (the presence and relevance of this allusion were demonstrated by Ryan).

15. That Boccaccio was well aware of Dante's puns on names is shown by the effective use of the pun on Cavalcante in his novella on Guido, Decameron 6.9.

16. In view of Dante's play on the names in Inferno 10 (in addition to the pun on Cavalcante, there are puns on Farinata, associated with the whited sepulchers of the Sermon on the Mount, and on Guido / guida ), there is probably a pun on Guido in Cacciaguida's name: in many respects Paradiso 14-18 is the last answer to the anxieties expressed in Inferno 10—anxicties about Guido as a poetic rival, about the social superiority of Guido and his relatives, about Guido's death and Dante's part in it, about Guido's Averroism. Cacciaguida may be understood to be dispelling these anxieties: egli caccia Guido.

17. Dante's questioning of Cacciaguida about the obscure prophecies of Ciacco, Farinata, Brunetto, and others is already anticipated in his careful questioning of Farinata about Cavalcante's failure of foreknowledge. See Durling 1981b.

18. Behind all the weapon metaphors lies the important passage in Ephesians 6: 10-18 (emphasis added):

De cetero, fratres, confortamini in Domino et in potentia virtutis eius. Induite vos armaturam Dei, ut possitis stare adversus insidias diaboli. Quoniam non est nobis colluctatio adversus carnem et sanguinem, sed adversus principes et potestates, adversus mundi rectores tenebrarum harum, contra spiritualia nequitiae in caelestibus. Propterea accipite armaturam Dei, ut possitis resistere in die malo et in omnibus perfecti stare. State ergo succincti lumbos vestros in veritate et induti loricam iustitiae et calceati pedes in praeparatione evangelii pacis; in omnibus sumentes scutum fidei, in quo possitis omnia tela nequissimi ignea exstinguere. Et galeam salutis adsumite et gladium spiritus, quod est verbum Dei; per omnem orationem et obsecrationem orantes omni tempore in spiritu et in ipso vigilantes in omni instantia. break

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the equipment of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith, with which you can quench all the flaming darts of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.
(RSV)

      For Dante's definition of his role as parallel to that of the prophet Nathan confronting King David with the sin of Bathsheba, see Sarolli 1971.

19. See Schnapp 1987 218-228 on the traditional free speech of the Christian, especially the martyr, or witness. Perhaps also, in such a richness of interconnections, it would not be farfetched to see in Dante's being girt with the reed an anticipation of a girding on of a pen (= sword), reeds being one of the traditional materials from which pens were made, mentioned in some noted biblical passages, for instance Psalm 44(46):2: "lingua mea calamus velociter scribentis."

20. He may well have been aware that, as Keen points out (1984 72-73), the patterns of the liturgical service of investiture had originally been derived from the ceremonies of coronation of kings.

1. Physics 4.223b.14; and Cornford 1937 103. See also Convivio 4.2.5-6: "il tempo è numero di movimento."

2. Macrobius, as Stahl points out (Macrobius 1952 162), overlooks the fact that the zodiacal order places Mercury just above the sun, while in Plato's order the next planet is Venus.

3. The two six-hour intervals, each occupying a quadrant, are matched by the reference in 27.143 to the nine thousand years, or three zodiacal signs (also a quadrant of the whole zodiac), required for the shift of the vernal equinox to December. In 27.115-17, Dante refers to the Primum Mobile as the standard by which time is measured; he uses as an analogy the measurement of ten by 1/2 (= 5) and 1/5 (= 2), addends of seven, and elements of the 6/1, 5/2, 4/3 system of shifting rhyme-words in the sestina.

4. The number 1296 is of course not technically perfect. The next perfect number after 6, 7, and 10 is 28, the sum of the first seven digits; it has a special relation to the sun, since it denumerates the great solar year of a "week" of leap years (thus 7 × 4). Multiplying 28 by the great lunar "year" of 19 years (the paschal or synodal cycle), we derive the "great year" of 532 years. See Honorius of Autun De imagine mundi, chap. 79 ( PL 172.157). break

1. For the theological meaning of the Paradiso gemstones in general, which is based on the iconography of the celestial Jerusalem (Apoc. 21.19-22) and the description of the faithful as the vivi lapides, the living stones of the spiritual city, in 1 Peter 2:4-5, see Schnapp 1986 194-198.

2. See Intelligenza 39.1 (Battaglia 1930 153): "Elitropia v'è, cara margherita."

3. Dante's order inverts that of Albertus Magnus (1967 39-43), which begins the discussion of color in stones with crystal and adamant, then red, blue, and green stones (the balash ruby, sapphire, and topaz are mentioned), and finally white stones—pearls.

4. Albertus Magnus (ibid. 75) holds that the balash is weaker than the carbuncle, "just as the female is as compared to the male."

3. Dante's order inverts that of Albertus Magnus (1967 39-43), which begins the discussion of color in stones with crystal and adamant, then red, blue, and green stones (the balash ruby, sapphire, and topaz are mentioned), and finally white stones—pearls.

4. Albertus Magnus (ibid. 75) holds that the balash is weaker than the carbuncle, "just as the female is as compared to the male."

5. On this stone, see Isidore Etymologiarum liber 16.10.6 ( PL 82.575c): "Solis gemma candida est, traxitque nomen, quod ad speciem solis in orbem fulgentes spargit radios."

6. For the etymology of tò pân, given in the Glossa ordinaria, see Schnapp 1987 197-198.

1. The sense of this paragraph depends on a typically medieval version of the Platonic doctrine of participation, in which something or someone is "worthy" by virtue of participation in the abstract (and higher) principle of "worth."

2. Salus has a range of meanings, including health, safety, and salvation.

3. Mengaldo (Dante 1979a 163) translates: "Quanto a noi, quindi, che miriamo a un'opera dottrinale, ci occorrerà emulare le loro poetiche ricchi di dottrina," clearly taking poetrias to mean "treatises on poetry." This reading does not satisfy us, especially because the ergo of the next sentence does not refer to a manner of writing treatises but to a method of writing poetry. It should be noted that the nobis of this sentence follows on "quantum . . . imitemur, tantum . . . poetemur." Dante's point is that our method of writing poetry should resemble as much as possible that of the "regular" poets, though we write in the vernacular. In other words, he is not calling attention to his echoing Horace here because that is how one writes a treatise (which would be trivial), but because he is transmitting the precepts of the method.

4. Horace Epistles 2.1 38-140: "Sumite materiam vestris, qui scribitis aequam / viribus, et versate diu, quid ferre recusent, / quid valeant umeri" ("Take on a subject equal to your powers, O you who write, and consider for a long time what your shoulders are strong enough to bear, what they will refuse").

5 . Aeneid 6.128-129: "Sed revocare gradum, superasque evadere ad auras, / hoc opus, hic labor est" ("But to retrace one's steps and emerge [from the underworld] to the upper air, this is the work, this is the labor").

6. This and the next parenthetical comment suggest that Dante did not understand the nature of the masculine endings or of the standard ten-syllable line in Provençal and French. In Italian, most words are accented on the penult, and the normal line (the hendecasyllable) has a feminine ending. break

7. Even numbers were thought of as female, odd as male, with three (the first odd number) being the first stable structure. These Pythagorean notions may help explain Dante's misunderstanding about the normative line in Provençal and French.

8. This sentence uses the artifices of isocolon and inversion but lacks the socalled rhetorical color of metaphor; Dante's target is a clearly identifiable academic style. See Mengaldo, in Dante 1979a 180-181.

9. This sentence adds to the refinements of the previous one that of sarcasm, since the marchese in question is the notorious and hated Azzo VIII (Mengaldo, in Dante 1979a 181).

10. Mengaldo writes: "F. Forti (in Dante e Bologna, pp. 127-149) has given the best explanation: this pattern is differentiated from the preceeding ones especially by its use of the metaphoric-symbolic technique of transumption, summit of the ornatus difficilis: Florence is personified . . . as a lady 'from whose bosom have been snatched the flowers that adorned her' (her best citizens), and the one who perpetrated the violence, Charles of Valois, is identified antonomastically with Totila (the destroyer of Florence, confused with Attila . . .). . . . Charles of Valois' responsibility for the Florentine crisis of 1301-1302 is polemically associated . . . with the defeat of the Angevin war on Sicily, which took place soon after" (Dante 1979a 182-183).

11. The obscurity of this paragraph derives from the fact that Dante shifts from one sense in which the term song can be active or passive (i.e., referring to the same event, it means the act of singing or the thing sung) to another. In the second part of the paragraph, Dante refers to two different events (the composition of the song and its later performance), and his use of the ideas of activity and passivity refers more particularly to the imparting or the receiving of form. Thus the composition of a song is active because it imposes form on the song, but its performance is passive because the singer must conform his performance to the song, take on the form of the song.

12. These are the three types of stanza with diesis: (1) undivided first part ( frons ), divided second part ( versus ); (2) divided first part ( pedes ), undivided second part ( sirma ); (3) divided first part ( pedes ), divided second part ( versus ).

13. Only the first line of this canzone—unique in Dante's output, as it seems, in having a frons —has survived.

14. That there can be a stanza with diesis but with undivided first and second parts seems directly to contradict 10.3-4 above.

15. Dante is referring to a form of internal rhyme, frequent in the dolce stil nuovo, in which the beginning of one line (usually a hendecasyllable) rhymes with the ending of the previous line; in "Poscia ch'Amor del tutto m'ha lasciato," for example, in each pes a trisyllable at the beginning of the third verse (a hendecasyllable) rhymes with the preceding verse (a quinario): break

16. The notion that the initial arrangement of the rhyme-words of a sestina (as well as the successive ones) is a matter of indifference, when much of the interest of the form in fact depends on it, seems evasive or even deliberately misleading. Similarly, Dante makes no distinction between rhymes and rhyme-words.

17. Here is another contradiction, this time with the first sentence of this lemma 10.

18. Dante is apparently thinking of a second part in which either (a) the concatenation or the final rhymed pair encloses two or more identical versus or (b) the order of the last versus is changed (e.g., by adding a line) to permit the rhymed ending. "Io sento sì d'amor la gran possanza" seems to be the only instance in Dante's poems; the scheme is AbC.AbC:CDDE.CDDE.FF, thus an instance of possibility (a)—i.e., the concatenation is achieved (as in "Donne ch'avete") by the presence of the C rhyme as the first in the versus, and a couplet is added after the two identical versus.

19. This passage is discussed in Appendix 1. break