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. [BACK]

2. Shapiro 1980 13, 33-34, 81-88. [BACK]

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. [BACK]

4. Dante 1946, 157 (our translation). [BACK]

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. [BACK]

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). [BACK]

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. [BACK]

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. [BACK]

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

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. [BACK]

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. [BACK]

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). [BACK]

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. [BACK]

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. [BACK]

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. [BACK]

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"). [BACK]

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. [BACK]

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

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

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." [BACK]

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

22. See Comens 1986. [BACK]

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. [BACK]

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. [BACK]

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). [BACK]

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. [BACK]

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. [BACK]

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

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. [BACK]

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). [BACK]

31. See Introduction, pp. 37-38, above. [BACK]

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. [BACK]

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. [BACK]

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). [BACK]

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). [BACK]

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." [BACK]

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. [BACK]

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." [BACK]

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. [BACK]

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

41. Fenzi 1966 244-245. [BACK]

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). [BACK]

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). [BACK]

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. [BACK]

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. [BACK]

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. [BACK]

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. [BACK]

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). [BACK]

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." [BACK]

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

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]). [BACK]

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. [BACK]

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." [BACK]

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. [BACK]

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

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. [BACK]

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

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). [BACK]

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 ). [BACK]

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]). [BACK]

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. [BACK]

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. [BACK]

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. [BACK]

65. See Chapter 1, note 30. [BACK]

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. [BACK]

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

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. [BACK]

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

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

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. [BACK]

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). [BACK]

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. [BACK]

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.) [BACK]

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

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. [BACK]

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." [BACK]

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)." [BACK]

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. [BACK]

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. [BACK]

81. See Chapter 6, pp. 253-255. [BACK]

82. On the numerology of the sestina, see Appendix 3. [BACK]

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. [BACK]

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. [BACK]

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. [BACK]

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). [BACK]

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). [BACK]

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

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. [BACK]

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. [BACK]

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. [BACK]