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.