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The Three Beasts and Perspective in the Divine Comedy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Aldo S. Bernardo
Aldo S. Bernardo*
Affiliation:
Harpur College Binghamton, N. Y.
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Extract

Dante Scholars have long recognized the central role played by the first Canto of the Comedy. In the last half-century the wealth of hidden riches contained in the Canto has received such emphasis that as early as 1925 P. Luigi Pietrobono could defend the Canto against those detractors who felt that its allegorical structure led to an obfuscation of thought. For Pietrobono, “Nel primo Canto Dante ha poste le basi del più complesso e armonioso edificio d'arte che mente umana abbia mai con-cepito; e perô, anzichè correre a criticare e a supporre che un cosî mirabile costruttore di mondi si sia sentita tremar la mano proprio nel tirarne le prime linee, direi molto più con-veniente volgere l'ingegno a ricercare il fine a cui con la sua opera intendeva.” He then proceeded to single out the many Biblical echoes that resound throughout the Canto, with special emphasis on the drama of the resurrection of Israel.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 78 , Issue 1 , March 1963 , pp. 15 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1963

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References

Note 1 in page 15 P. Luigi Pietrobono, “II Canto I dell'Inferno,” Lectura Dantis Romana, (Turin, 1959), pp. 7–10.

Note 2 in page 15 Karl Vossler, Mediaeval Culture, An Introduction to Dante and His Times (New York, 1958), n, 232.

Note 3 in page 15 Problemi fondamentali per un nuovo commento della Divina Commedia (Florence, 1956), p. 121.

Note 4 in page 15 Dante Studies 1, Commedia, Elements of Structure (Cambridge, Mass., 1954), pp. 5–6; See also his “In Exitu Israel de Aegypto,” Annual Report of the Dante Society, 1960, pp. 1–2.

Note 5 in page 15 Dante Studies 1, pp. 7–12. 6 “In Exitu,” pp. 1–24.

Note 7 in page 16 “Dante's Firm Foot and the Journey without a Guide,” Harvard Theological Review, LII (October 1959), 245–281.

Note 8 in page 16 Dante Studies 1, p. 17, n. 3.

Note 9 in page 16 Freccero has recently resolved a similar problem in his article, “Dante's Pilgrim in a Gyre,” PMLA, LXXVI (June 1961), 168–181.

Note 10 in page 16 See C. H. Grandgent, La Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri (Boston, 1933), pp. 10–11; Singleton, Dante Studies 1, p. 5; Freccero, “Dante's Firm Foot,” pp. 274–275. See, however, La Divina Commedia, ed. G. Vandelli (Milan, 1946), p. 5, n. 31; La Divina Commedia, ed. A. Momigliano (Florence, 1954), p. 8; M. Appollonio, Dante, in Storia letteraria d'ltalia (Milan, 1951), pp. 556–559; and La Divina Commedia, ed. N. Sapegno (Milan, 1957), p. 8.

Note 11 in page 16 See Vandelli's note already cited.

Note 12 in page 16 Cf. Grandgent, loc. cit., Singleton, Dante Studies 1, p. 5, Freccero, “Dante's Firm Foot,” pp. 277, n. 93.

Note 13 in page 16 For the most comprehensive argument in favor of interpreting the wolf as incontinence or cupidity, see M. Barbi, “Ancora per un nuovo commento della ‘Divina Commedia’,” Studi Danteschi, xxi (1937), 116–130.

Note 14 in page 17 Singleton, Dante Studies 1, pp. 7–9.

Note 15 in page 18 Singleton, Dante Studies 2, Journey to Beatrice (Cambridge, Mass., 1959), p. 5.

Note 16 in page 19 Pietrobono, Canto I, pp. 26–29.

Note 17 in page 19 Problemi, p. 123.

Note 18 in page 19 Ibid., pp. 13–29.

Note 19 in page 19 Dante Studies 1, p. 5.

Note 20 in page 20 Confessions, rv, xii.

Note 21 in page 20 Journey to Beatrice, pp. 223–224. See also Par. vil.

Note 22 in page 20 Ibid., p. 226. Singleton returns to the importance of this doctrine in his “In Exitu,” pp. 10–12.

Note 23 in page 21 Bruno Nardi, “La Caduta di Lucifero,” Lectura Dantis Romana (Rome, 1959), p. 27.

Note 24 in page 21 In the Book of Genesis, indeed, the Lord metes out punishment first to the Serpent who is to be “cursed … among all animals, is to crawl on his belly, is to eat of dust all the days of his life, and is finally to be crushed by a Redeemer”; then to Eve who is to experience the pain of childbirth and of longing; and finally to Adam whose punishment is defined in terms of the ground which he must now work in order to live. (Gen. iii.14-20.) In the case of both the Serpent and of Adam, their punishment implies “lowliness” and the eating of either the dust of the earth or the plants of the fields.

At least three times in the Inferno Virgil points out that the trip through hell is necessary in order to acquire “esperi-enza piena.” Inf. xii.87; XVII.35-36; xxvni.48.

Note 25 in page 21 Nardi, “La Caduta,” pp. 18–23.

Note 26 in page 22 “Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. In the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground.” Gen. iii.18-19.

Note 27 in page 22 “He shall crush your head, and you shall lie in wait for his heel.” Gen. iii.15.

Note 28 in page 22 I am taking the liberty of using Singleton's translation of the passage in question, which he cites in support of his Exodus motif: But lest a man (conversus quisque) should believe himself holy immediately on his conversion, and security should overthrow him, whom the contest with pain could not overpower, he is permitted, in the dispensation of God, after his conversion, to be wearied with the assaults of temptations. The Red Sea was already crossed by his conversion, but enemies still oppose him to the face while in the wilderness of this present life. We leave already our past sins behind us, as the Egyptians dead on the shore. But destructive vices still assail us, as fresh enemies, to obstruct the way on which we have entered to the land of promise. Our former offenses, as enemies who were pursuing us, already had been laid low by the power of God alone. But the assaults of temptations meet us to our face, like fresh enemies, to be overcome with our own endeavors also. (“In Exitu,” p. 5.)

Note 29 in page 22 PMLA, LXXVI (1961), pp. 168–181.

Note 30 in page 23 The central role of tears in the drama of salvation is clearly defined in Purg. xxx. SS-145, where we see Beatrice's stern rebuke of Dante causing tears literally to gush from the poet's eyes. Beatrice subsequently explains that Dante could not possibly have emerged from the “low place” in which he had fallen in Canto ? “ … sanza alcuno scotto Di penti-mento che lagrime spanda.”

Note 31 in page 24 Perhaps the clearest way in which to visualize this moment of the drama is to imagine the earth's globe as depicted at the beginning of most editions of the Comedy. Viewing it in cross-section, we see a cone extending “downward” from the northern surface with its apex resting at the center of the sphere. On the southern surface we have another cone extending “upward” in the shape of the mountain of Purgatory. If we now conceive of Dante standing on the northern surface looking “up” at what appears to be a mountain at whose base are the three beasts, and recall that the arrival of Virgil signifies that this particular man has somehow avoided damnation, it is possible to locate this man very precisely on our map. We must however first imagine our drawing on transparent paper. By folding our drawing in two along the earth's equator and by then viewing the drawing against the light, we see Dante standing on the shore of Purgatory with the cone of Hell below him. North thus becomes South and Man is reflected in his true position as the “mean between corruptible and incorruptible things” (De Monarchia in, 16, 30–33). Furthermore, since the drawing is folded in two, for Man to reach the shores of Purgatory by means of a direct journey from Dante's starting place, he must pass “downward” through the center of the globe.

Note 32 in page 24 “In Exitu,” pp. 1–2.

Note 33 in page 24 Singleton, “In Exitu,” pp. 14–18; Purg. vin.22-24;100-108.

Note 34 in page 24 Purg. vin.87-93; Singleton, Dante Studies 2, pp. 159–183.

Note 35 in page 24 Purg. ix.10-42. Vossler has already indicated that “the three heavenly ladies … would seem to be contrasted with the three ravenous beasts of hell.” Singleton has pointed out that on this new stage divine assistance against the Serpent comes directly from Mary and that the eagle is Lucia. The scene has clearly shifted from the Northern hemisphere (to which even a Virgil is eternally committed) to the Southern hemisphere (where all seven stars are visible). Vossler, Mediaeval Culture, p. 231; Singleton, “In Exitu,” pp. 18–19. It is also interesting to note that the “stuff of Adam” is recalled just as the pilgrim falls asleep (Purg. ix.10) as are the pagan gods and the Trojan Wars (Purg. ix.22-24, 34–39). These represent, as it were, the last echoes of the adamant wolf.

The Psalmist himself had sung, in Psalm 90, of how the man of faith who cries out “my God, in Him will I trust,” will trample “beasts” underfoot. “A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right; but it shall not come nigh thee. For He hath given his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. In their hands they shall bear thee up, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk, and thou shalt trample under foot the lion and the dragon.”