The Legacy of "Io son venuto"

The extent to which the achievement of the petrose conditions Dante's presentation of the natural cosmos in the Commedia can be gauged in those passages where "Io son venuto" has left traces. All five stanzas of the canzone are echoed by Stazio in his account of why conventional weather ceases above the gate of Purgatory (Purgatorio 21.46–57; emphasis added):

Per che non  pioggia,  non grando, non  neve, 
    non rugiada, non  brina più  sù  cade 
    che la scaletta di tre gradi breve; 
nuvole  spesse non paion né rade, 
    né coruscar, né figlia di Taumante, 
    che di là  cangia sovente contrade; 
secco vapor  non surge più avante 
    ch'al sommo d'i tre gradi ch'io parlai, 
    dov' ha'l vicario di Pietro le piante. 
Trema forse più giù poco od assai; 
    ma per  vento che 'n terra si nasconda, 
    non so come, qua sù non tremò mai.

Phenomena of the lower elemental spheres (of air, water, and earth)—clouds, rain, snow, frost, lightning, and earthquakes caused by ter-

restrial vapors—are mentioned here, just as they are mentioned, in descending spatial order, in "Io son venuto": wind, clouds, fog, and snow in stanza 2; brina in stanza 4; terrestrial vapors ("vapor che la terra ha nel ventre") in stanza 5. The same passage returns to inform Purgatorio 5.109–120 and Paradiso 28.79–84.^[10] Individual stanzas, however, also receive specific mention in the Commedia; and the whole of "Io son venuto" also functions as a microcosmic form for the Inferno, as we show later.

The skyscape of stanza 1 of "Io son venuto" returns in the Commedia at the beginnings of the three cantiche (see below). The beginning of stanza 2, describing the vento peregrin that arises in Ethiopia, furnishes the rhyme of copia (referring to snakes) with Etïopia in Inferno 24 and the terms for the allegorical storm prophesied by Vanni Fucci ("tragge Marte vapor di Val di Magra / ch'è di torbidi nuvoli involuto"), which echoes turba, nebbia, vapor in "Io son venuto" (15, 19, 54).^[11] Stanza 3, describing the flight and silence of birds, is echoed three times in the Commedia, in Inferno 5 and in Purgatorio 24 and 26, each case treating of migratory birds. In the first instance, migrating cranes are compared to the group of damned lovers, including Paolo and Francesca ("cantando lor lai / . . . traendo guai," Inferno 5.46–48; cf. "Io son venuto," 6–7: guai gai ). In the second, the poet Bonagiunta's departure is compared to a flight of birds ("Come li augei che vernan lungo 'l Nilo," Purgatorio 24.64; cf. "Fuggito è ogne augel che'l caldo segue / del paese d'Europa, che non perde / le sette stelle gelide unquemai . . . ," 29). In the third, it is love-poets who are likened to cranes migrating in different directions ("come grue ch'a le montagne Rife / volasser parte, e parte inver'l'arene, / queste delgel, quelle del sole schife," Purgatorio 26.43–45). Finally, stanza 5, with its reference to the assault of winter and the conversion of ice into crystal, is evoked in the lowest regions of Hell, as we show in the second half of this chapter.

As this list of parallels may suggest, the events in the middle stanzas of "Io son venuto"—winds, movement of birds and of the sun, death, and return of vegetation—are a repertory of changes in the world of the elements, the realm to which the poet of the petrose is in part bound. Similarly, the migration of birds in the similes of the Purgatorio underlines the alternation of the seasons, the alternae vices of the solar year. But the crucial link is the association of migrating birds with poetry, for both Bonagiunta and Guinizelli, each described by the tenor of one of these similes, were (and figure as) poets.^[12]

The complex thematic links established in the central stanzas of "Io

son venuto" between the poet and nature are found again at the heart of the Purgatorio. In the Commedia as in troubadour and stilnuovo lyrics the song and movement of birds is a canonical metaphor for desire, and especially desire in poetry. As we noted in Chapter 2, the stilled bird-song and evergreens at the center of "Io son venuto" are juxtaposed to the poet's persistent song and vigorous love. In turn, the flights of birds in Inferno 5 and in (and near) the seventh terrace of Purgatory are not accidental, for both zones treat of sexual desire and its representation in lyric and narrative poetry.^[13] These emphases affect the structure of the Purgatorio. Dante places three discourses on love and free will squarely at the center of the middle cantica. Especially in Virgilio's two discourses (cantos 17 and 18), we find echoes of both Inferno 5 and Purgatorio 24–27 in the language of appetition, inclination, and motion toward desired objects used to explain how all human motivation is a form of love. Love is thus the central topic of the Purgatorio (amor or its related verbs and adjectives occur seventeen times in Cantos 16–18), just as it appears at the center of "Io son venuto":

     e tutti li animali che son gai 
di lor natura, son d'amor  disciolti 
però che'l freddo lor spirito  ammorta: 
e 'l mio più  d'amor porta . . . 
           (33–36)

A striking verbal link helps confirm the echo of "Io son venuto" here. Just as the birds keep their song under truce in winter ("a le lor voci triegue," 30) in the canzone, the pilgrim's forward movement in Canto 17 is interrupted ("la possa de le gambe posta in triegue" ) by the setting of the sun.^[14] Moreover, the problem at issue in this part of the Purgatorio—that of the primary notions and instincts, which do not admit choice and are thus free of blame—appears through imagery that echoes the language of "Io son venuto" on animal activity and vegetation in relation to the lover's own vitality: the rising of flame ("come'l foco movesi in altura," 18.28), the greening of vegetation ("come per verdi frondi in pianta viva, " 18.54), the labor of bees ("studio in ape," 18.58). Compare, from the canzone:

     Passato hanno lor termine le  fronde 
che trasse fuor la  vertù  d'Arïete 
per adornare il mondo, e morta è  l'erba; 
     ramo di  foglia verde  a noi s'asconde 
se non se in lauro,  in pino od in abete. 
           (40–44) ^[15]

We recall, too, that the beginning of the discussion regarding love and free will originates in the pilgrim's question to Marco Lombardo regarding the power of the heavens ("i cieli i vostri movimenti inizia," 16.73). Thus, the center of the Purgatorio is devoted to the question of celestial influences and human freedom, just as the complexities of "Io son venuto" and the other petrose develop from the poet's struggle with his horoscope. As we showed in Chapter 2, one problematic of the petrose derives from the double nature of the lover, who both suffers and transcends the influence of his stars. We find at the center of the Purgatorio a similar crucial threshold or horizon between appetition, ruled by inclination or talento, and election, ruled by reason and the spirit. The center of the Purgatorio develops the themes of celestial influence, the mutable seasons, the distinction of day and night, love, and poetics, much as if it were an extended lyric poem enclosing at its heart the spark of love.