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The "Rime Petrose" and the Purgatorial Palinode
Author(s): Sara Sturm-Maddox

Source: Studies in Philology, Vol. 84, No. 2 (Spring, 1987), pp. 119-133
Published by: University of North Carolina Press
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STUDIES IN PHILOLOGY
Volume LXXXIV Spring, 1987 Number 2
The Rime Petrose and the

Purgatorial Palinode
by SaraSturm-Maddox
T NHE rime petrose have long represented something of an
anomaly in Dante criticism. Linguisticallyand stylistically,it is
generally acknowledged that these poems represent an experi-
ment whose results are telling for the ultimate achievement of the
Commedia: breaking with the "dolce" style of the Vita Nuova and its
lyrics, the petrosestrive, as one of them declares in its opening verse,
to be "aspro";they release an aggressive poetic energy that will char-
acterize in turn much of the Commedia.1 But if the contributionof this
stylistic experimentation to the vigorous images of the Commediais
readily apparent, in terms of content the petrosewould appear to
mark a breach in the thematic line of edifying love-experience that
closely links the Commediato the VitaNuova, whose closing promise
the later text fulfills. The integration of the experience of the Vita
Nuova into the thematic structure of the Commedia,implicit in the
opening canto of the Infernoand ever more evident in the pilgrim's
successive encounters with Dante's vernacularprecursorson the ter-
races of Mt. Purgatory,emerges as the explicit narrative materiaof
Purgatorio30 and 31 in the terms of Beatrice'srebuke delivered to the
' Luigi Blasuccicharacterizesthe essential nucleus of the "formulapetrosa"in terms
of this strong activationof components;see "L'esperienzadelle petrosee il linguaggio
della Divina Commedia,"Belfagor, 12 (1957): 403-431. For other studies of this experi-
mentationsee MarioMarti,Realismo dantesco(Milano-Napoli:R. Ricciardi,1961),espe-
cially 27-29; V. Pernicone,"Le rime,"Culturae scuola,4 (1965): 684-85; and the excel-
lent treatmentby E. Fenzi, "Lerime per la donna Pietra,"Miscellanea di StudiDanteschi
(Genova:M. Bozzi, 1966), E67-82, with extensive bibliography.
119
?: 1987 The University of North CarolinaPress
120 Rime Petrose and PurgatorialPalinode
penitent in the Earthly Paradise. Yet to include the thematics of the
Vita Nuova within the Commediais but to reestablish a direction once
affirmed, to reaffirm a continuity between the poet's devotion to the
Beatrice known in Florence and the celestial Beatrice. To accommo-
date the experience of the petroseis another matter: the erotic sugges-
tiveness of this set of poems would seem a priori to render them
foreign to the ennobling love celebrated in the Commedia,and it has
been repeatedly suggested that the thematics of the petrose can find
no place in the great design of the poema sacro.
Yet in that same encounter in which Beatrice refers to her role in
the pilgrim's young life, in his "vita nova," she refers also to the lapse
which estranged him from her image and marked his deviation from
the proper direction of his soul:
Mai non t'appresent6naturao arte
piacer,quanto le belle membrain ch'io
rinchiusafui, e che so' 'n terrasparte;
e se '1sommo piacer si ti fallio
per la niia morte, qual cosa mortale
dovea poi trarrete nel suo disio?
Ben ti dovevi, per lo primo strale
de le cose fallaci, levar suso
di retroa me che non era pia tale.
Non ti dovea gravarle penne in giuso,
ad aspettarpiu colpo, o pargoletta
o altra novita di si breve uso.
(Purg. 31: 49-6o)2
This passage has one term of immediate intertextual resonance: the

reader familiar with Dante's earlier poetic development must pause
to consider that the lady of two of his rime, as well as the lady of the
first of the petrose, is designated as "pargoletta."3 The autobiographi-
cal reading of this passage in Purgatorio 31, corresponding to the
autobiographical interpretation of the "pargoletta" series and of
the petrose, has a long history: already in the 1330's, the Ottimo
2 Citations of the Commedia are from Giorgio Petrocchi's text as reprinted in The
Divine Comedy, translated with commentary by Charles Singleton, Bollingen Series
LXXX (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970-1975).
3 The "pargoletta" poems are numbered 87 and 89 in the edition of the Rime by
Michele Barbi (Firenze: Nella sede della Societa, 1921; repr. 1960); in the more recent
edition of Dante's Lyric Poetry by Kenelm Foster and Patrick Boyde (Vol. 1, The Poems;
Vol. 2, Commentary) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), they are 64 and 66. Citations of
the "pargoletta" poems and of the Rime petroseare from the latter edition.
SaraSturm-Maddox 121
commentoconsiders Beatrice'sremarkan allusion to Dante's lyric "I'

mi' son pargoletta bella e nova," and situates the "affair"that it is
presumed to record shortly after the death of Beatrice.4But there is
also the well-establishedcounter-interpretationof the reference. Was
the "pargoletta"to whom Beatricealludes not rather the Lady Phi-
losophy to whom Dante proclaimshis allegiance in the Convivio,and
Beatrice'srebuke then an allusion to Dante's having abandoned the
"vera via" in an abortive philosophical venture?5We know that one
criticalcurrent insisted, however implausibly, that the Donna Pietra
of the petrosewas herself to be read in chiaveallegoricaas Philosophy.6
In response to this reading of the Convivio, Grandgent rejoined
sceptically that the identification of the "donna pietosa" with Lady
Philosophy in that treatise was really an instance of bad faith on
Dante's part, so that the pilgrim'sconfession and Beatrice'srebuke in
the Purgatorioat last set the record straight, to acknowledge that
whatever may be represented by the "pargoletta""was also, and
originally,a sentiment deserving reprobation."7Several astute read-
ings of the passage have observed that the two referents are not
mutually exclusive, that the referenceis indeed double: "the first,"to
summarize with RobertHollander, "to Dante's infedelity to Beatrice
with an actual pargoletta;the second to his flirtation with the Lady
Philosophy, who is to be understood as the wrong kind of thought:
the sins of the flesh and the sins of the spirit."8
If the reference to the "pargoletta"figures in Dante's palinodic
strategy in the final canti of the Purgatorioas a female object of his
4 See Foster and Boyde, Dante's LyricPoetry, 2: i86.
5 Among the numerous discussions of this question see John Freccero, "Casella's
Song (Purgatorio II, 112)," Dante Studies, 91 (1973): 73-80; David Thompson, Dante's
Epic Journeys (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974), 72ff;
Anthony Cassell, "Failure, Pride and Conversion in Inferno I: A Reinterpretation,"
Dante Studies, 94 (1976): 2-3; R. A. Shoaf, Dante, Chaucer,and the Currencyof the Word
(Norman, Oklahoma: Pilgrim Books, 1983), 61-66.
6 For the history of this and other interpretations see Raoul Blomme, "'Pietra'
davanti alla critica," in Etudes de litterature italienne, espagnole et provenale, ed. M.
Puppo et. al., RomanicaGandensia14 (Ghent: Rijksuniversiteit teit te Gent, Faculteit der
Letteren en Wijsbegeerte, 1973), 31-56.
7 C. H. Grandgent, La Divina Commediadi Dante Alighieri (Boston: D. C. Heath &
Co., rev. ed. 1933), 613.
8 Allegory in Dante's Commedia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 165.
Marti suggests that all aspects of the period of Dante's "traviamento" following the
death of Beatrice are involved in the retrospective judgment; see Realismodantesco, 30-
32. See also Teodolinda Barolini, Dante's Poets (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1984), 52-54.
amorous attention as well as a direction of his intellectual inquiry
during the years immediately following the death of Beatrice, it
would be most in keeping with the poet's usual practiceto consider
the term an allusion, not to a "real"affair, but rather to his earlier
poetic record. In Dante's majorworks, as several recent studies sug-
gest,9 it is a preceding literaryexperience that is again and again
subjected to retrospective (and frequently revisionary)reading. The
"pargoletta,"then, would be the sign of one moment of that prior
experience. Those criticswho have seen in the term such an allusion,
however, have considered it an isolated intrusion in the passage, and
indeed in the Commediaas a whole. Neri, observing that "il nome,
quasi gia divulgato, e quello dell'amor profano,"insists nonetheless
on the necessary exclusion of further reference: "le canzoni della
Pietra non poteva ricordarenella Commedia: erano l'attestazione del
'grave tempo'.""0
Yetit has been demonstrated that there are many passages of the
Commedia that allude to, or must be connected with, the rimepetrose.
Robert Durling in his study of "Io son venuto" terms that poem a
"microcosm"of the Commedia,and points especially to Paradiso22,
where the pilgrim enters the sphere of the fixed stars, in the well-
known verses that identify Dante's own birth-sign as Gemini: "It is
practicallyinconceivable,"he comments, "that Dante wrote the pas-
sage without intending the allusions.""1It is noteworthy that in
Paradiso22, as in the reunion with Beatrice staged in Purgatorio30
and 31, at issue is Dante's personal past experience: a link between
9 See Rachel lacoff, "The Post-Palinodic Smile: ParadisoVIII and IX," Dante Studies,
98 (1980), esp. 112. Bernard Stambler proposes that Beatrice rebukes Dante for a "step
backward in poetry," one that "may well have involved an attachment to a girl inferior
to Beatrice"; see Dante's Other World(New York:New York University Press, 1957), 266.
In an interesting recent contribution to this question, Colin Hardie suggests that Be-
atrice reproaches Dante for his failure to fulfill the promise at the end of the Vita Nuova
and for his writing poetry for other ladies. That the experience of the petrose repre-
sents such a lapse would account for the "special animosity" of Beatrice's final rebuke
in the Earthly Paradise, where she calls the pilgrim "fatto di pietra e, impetrato, tinto";
see "Dante's 'Mirabile visione' (VN xlii)," in The Worldof Dante: Essays on Dante and His
Times, ed. Cecil Grayson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 198o), esp. 134-36.
'? Ferdinando Neri, "'lo son venuto al punto della rota,'" in Letteraturae leggende
(Torino: Chiantore, 1951), 36, 51. G. Contini relates the encounter with Forese to the
imitation of Arnaut Daniel in "Amor, tu vedi ben": "sono tutti esperimenti stilistici che
chiedono di essere tacitati, sottomessi, in una 'summa' totale." See "Dante come
personaggio-poeta della Commedia,"in Variantie altra linguistica (Torino: Einaudi, 1970),
352-53.
t Robert Durling, "'lo son venuto': Seneca, Plato, and the Microcosm," Dante Stud-
ies, 93 (1975): 115-16.
SaraSturm-Maddox 123
the two retrospective assessments is further suggested by the fact

that in Paradiso22 the issue is again stated in terms of his former
straying, now labelled forthrightly "le mie peccata" (see especially
vv. io6-1o8). Close attention to the detail of the pilgrim's reunion
with Beatriceconfirms that it too bears multiple and complex affin-
ities with the rimepetrose.The palinodic evocation of that particular
earlierrecord of love-experience goes well beyond the mere mention
of the "pargoletta,"and collectively its elements contribute further
resonance to the richly textured set of allusions that have heretofore
been identified in this criticaljuncture of the Purgatorio.
One suggestion concerning the importance of the term "pargo-
letta" within the general biographical argument of these canti was
proferredby Momigliano, who observed that "pargoletta"seems to
be the specification of the "altrui"already mentioned in an earlier
moment of Beatrice'sreproach:"Si tosto come in su la soglia fui / di
mia seconda etade e mutai vita," accuses Beatrice, "questi si tolse a
me, e diessi altrui"(Purgatorio30: 124-26)."2 This "altrui,"of course,
is not a very precise designation, grammaticallysubject as it is to
singular or plural application. It is a term that occurs twice, however,
in rhyme position in Dante's lyric "I'mi son pargolettabella e nova."
In the first instance, in terms highly reminiscent of passages of the
Vita Nuova, the term refers to the effect of the lady on those who
observe her: she declares that she has come "per mostrarealtrui / de
le bellezze del loco ov' io fui" (vv. 2-3). In its second occurrence,
however, "altrui"designates the lady herself, and specificallyas the
source of the pleasure that occasions love in her admirer:the latterin
turn is identified as the man "in cui / Amor si metta per piacer altrui"
(vv. 16-17).
With the phrase "per piacer altrui" we are led back to Beatrice's
rebuke in the EarthlyParadise.Immediately preceding her reference
to the fatal attractionof the "pargoletta,"as we have seen, Beatrice
not once but twice defines the effect that her own physical person
had had on the young Dante in the period of his "vita nova" as
"piacer":
Mai non t'appresentOnatura o arte
piacer, quanto le belle membrain ch'io
rinchiusafui, e che so' 'n terra sparte;
12 La Divina
Commedia: commento di Attilio Momigliano. II: Purgatorio (Firenze:
Sansoni, i960), 503.
e se '1sommo piacer si ti fallio
per la mia morte, qual cosa mortale
dovea poi trarrete nel suo disio?
(31: 49-54)
The reader for whom she has already evoked the Vita Nuova with the
recall of "i mie' desiri, / che ti menavano ad amar lo bene / di la dal
qual non e a che s'aspiri" (22-24) may feel some surprise at the em-
phasis in this later passage, which insists upon the beauty of Be-
atrice's body more forcefully and directly than any indication in the
poet's youthful libello.13More in keeping with the physical descrip-
tion of her person in the Vita Nuova is Beatrice's initial reference,
addressed to the attendant angels, to her role in that earlier period of
Dante's life:
Alcun tempo il sostenni col mio volto:
mostrando li occhi giovanettia lui,
meco il menava in drittaparte volto.
(30: 121-23)
Following the penitent's eventual tears of contrition and his immer-

sion in the waters of Lethe, the description of Beatrice will once
again focus on the splendor of her "occhi rilucenti," her "occhi
santi"; when at the angels' urging she reveals to Dante the "seconda
bellezza" of her smile, it will prompt the celebration of her "santo
riso."14 If such notations restore to us, as to the pilgrim, the Beatrice
of the Vita Nuova, that radiant figure whose appearance at last satis-
fies his "decenne sete" (Purg. 32: 1-2),'5 to what are we now to attri-
bute her emphasis on her own youthful beauty as the "sommo
piacer" of her "belle membra?" That emphasis has a precise function
in this passage: it initiates the multi-faceted allusion to the petrose, to
13
Among the few to remark on this emphasis is Dorothy Sayers: "The interesting,
and to our minds rather unexpected, thing is the insistence on physical beauty as the
source of the highest earthly joy"; see her translation of the Divine Comedy:2: Purgatory
(Baltimore: Penguin, 1955), 320. In the Vita Nuova the "piacere" is associated with
Beatrice's beauty to emphasize its transformation: "'1 piacer de la sua
bieltate, / partendo se de la nostra veduta, / divenne spirital bellezza grande"
(XXXIII).
14 See Purgatorio31: 119, 131, 136-38; 32: 6-7.
15 Singleton observes that this Beatrice at whom the pilgrim now looks "troppo fiso"
is the Beatrice of the Vita Nuova in all her beauty, and in this focus for the moment
she is not seen as Revelation or as the bearer of any other symbolic name" (Purgatorio,
Commentary, 781).
Sara Sturm-Maddox 125
those poems in which it was the physical beauty of the lady that
forced the protagonist's capitulation to Love's attack.
The evocation of the petrosecasts light on another term of Beatrice's
reproach. Dante's straying following her early death was due, she
makes plain, to his having awaited "piu colpo, o pargoletta / o altra
novita con si breve uso." It is possible to read "colpo" as a blow
of fortune, as another manifestation of the arrows of those "cose
fallaci" just mentioned by Beatrice to describe the ephemeral nature
of earthly pleasure. Considered in relation to the rime petrose, how-
ever, the term assumes a more precise significance. We read first in
"Al poco giorno" concerning the lady Pietra that "la sua bellezza ha
piCuvertfi che petra, / e '1 colpo suo non puo sanar per erba" (vv. 19-
20). The notation of this blow recurs yet more forcefully as the suffer-
ing lover addresses his master Love in another of the petrose:
E io, che son constante piu che petra

in ubidirtiper bielta di donna,
porto nascoso il colpo de la petra
con la qual tu mi desti come a petra
che t'avesse innoiato lungo tempo,
tal che m'ando al core ov' io son petra.
("Amor,tu vedi ben," 13-18)
Recalling the experience of the Vita Nuova as she is revealed once

again to the pilgrim, Beatrice insists on her own physical beauty
because it was the physical beauty of another that had replaced
her, according to the record of the petrose, in Dante's devotion. As
if in confirmation, her charge concerning his having abandoned
her for another might well take as evidence the emphatic affirma-
tions of an exclusive passion found in the petrose poems themselves:
"Quand'ella ha in testa una ghirlanda d'erba, / trae de la mente
nostra ogn'altra donna," Dante declares of Pietra in "Al poco giorno"
(vv. 13-14); "Da li occhi suoi mi ven la dolce lume / che mi fa non
caler d'ogn'altra donna," he reaffirms in "Amor, tu vedi ben" (vv. 43-
44). In the latter poem, he goes further: ascribing to Pietra's compel-
ling beauty the impossibility of his loving another, he questions
whether the beauty of any other woman could compare with that of
the unyielding lady of his stony rhymes: he may die of his passionate
affliction, he fears,
per non levarmise non dopo il tempo,
quando vedrb se mai fu bella donna
nel mondo come questa acerbadonna.
(58-60)
It is in the timeless Otherworld of the Earthly Paradise that he
finds the answer to this question, to which his insistence in the
petrose on Pietra's incomparable beauty has given such prominence.
Following her account of Dante's straying, Beatrice imperiously di-
rects the shamed pilgrim to raise his eyes and look on her. The terms
of her command create a moment of dramatic expectation:
"Quando / per udir se' dolente, alza la barba, / e prenderai piiu dog-
lia riguardando" (31: 67-69). Critics have frequently commented, as
does the pilgrim himself within the text, that the "velen de l'argu-
mento" of Beatrice's words lies in her synecdochical use of "barba" to
indicate the face of the penitent, thus emphasizing the inappropri-
ateness of his past conduct in a man of presumed maturity and rein-
forcing her earlier remark that the mature bird does not await succes-
sive snares. But it is still necessary to ask why, when the pilgrim,
repeatedly encouraged by Virgil, has so eagerly awaited the moment
when he would once again see Beatrice, that moment should now be
one to which he responds with "doglia riguardando." It is with great
difficulty that he obeys her command, and when he at last raises his
eyes to see Beatrice, the account of what he sees significantly con-
tains no description at all of her appearance. It focuses rather on his
recognition that her beauty is superior to that of all other women:
Sotto '1suo velo e oltre la rivera
vincer pariemi piu se stessa antica,
vincer che l'altrequi, quand' ella c'era.
(31: 82-84)
This moment, in brief, is the triumph of the Beatrice of the Vita
Nuova over the "pargoletta," over the Pietra of the rime petrose.'6 Just
as the noun "piacer" had been repeated twice in the span of three
verses to emphasize the physical beauty of Beatrice, so now the verb
"vincer" occurs twice in succession to signal the triumph of her
i6
While the debate over whether a single young woman or a single love inspired
both the "pargoletta" poems and the petrose appears fruitless, the thematic content of
the two series is very similar despite the differences of poetic register; see the com-
ments of Paul Renucci, Dante (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1958), esp. 54-55.
beauty over all other feminine beauty experienced by the penitent.
The "doglia" that he experiences as he looks on her is the pain of
recognition, the acknowledgement that his straying had indeed led
him away from the sublime beauty once perceived in the girl of Flor-
ence toward beauty of a lesser order, radically different and
unworthy.
It is hardly necessary to remarkthat what Dante is staging here is
not a vulgar beauty contest, just as the very personal tenor of Be-
atrice's rebuke does not signal a spiteful attack prompted by petty
jealousy. The beauty of Beatriceset over against the beauty of Pietra
or that of the "pargoletta"stands here for more than the physical
attributesof either woman. It is importantto insist, however, that the
term "pargoletta"is not primarilyan autobiographicalintrusion but a
literaryone; or rather, like Beatrice'sallusions to the pilgrim's "vita
nova" that precede it, it continues the elaborationof a literaryauto-
biography whose traces are more and more evident in the encoun-
ters with Dante's poetic forebearson the terracesof Mt. Purgatory.17
The "pargoletta"is the markerof a textual presence, not that of an
historical presence. Just as the allusions to the Vita Nuova review
within the new structure and new perspective of the Commediathe
treatment of amatory experience in Dante's early libello,so the allu-
sion to the "pargoletta"opens a darkerchapter of that experience to
stern reappraisal. As John Freccerocomments, the Commedia"pro-
vides a new frameworkwithin which the total poetic experience of
its creator is ordered toward an ending that could not have been
foreseen at any single moment of the evolution, while appearing to
be its inevitable outcome.''l8 And the rimepetroseare very much a
part of that total poetic experience. Further,because of the repeated
absolute, uncompromising, and exclusive proclamations of the po-
ems in that series, they cannot simply be set aside if the integrity of
Dante's "literarycurriculum"is to be maintained.19Pietrais antitheti-
17 For detailed commentary on the construction of the poetic autobiographysee
Contini, "Dante come personaggio-poeta,"and more recently Barolini,Dante'sPoets,

ChaptersI and II.
18 "Casella'sSong," 73. "Anallusion to a formerwork within such a context is inevi-
tably palinodic,"adds Freccero,"forit invests the poetry itself with the dramaticdou-
ble-focus that is part of the story: the conversion of the Dante who uns into the poet
whose work we read."
'9 The term is that of Angelo Jacomuzzi,"La 'pargoletta'in Purgatorio(XXXI,58-
6o),"LettureClassensi,8 (Ravenna:A. Longo, 1979), 10. Jacomuzzinotes the particular
frequenceof evocations of the rimein the latercantos of the Purgatorio,in the pilgrim's
128 Rime Petrose andPurgatorialPalinode
cal to Beatrice:she is an anti-Beatricewhose destructive power is
overcome only by the reassertion of Beatrice'sdominant influence.20
For the experience of the VitaNuovato be definitively reaffirmed,for
its continuity with the Commediato be reestablished, the antithetical
experience of the petrosemust be both denounced and rejected. In
Purgatorio31 it is rejected on its own terms: it is immediately follow-
ing the pilgrim'srecognition of Beatrice'ssurpassing beauty that the
Lady Pietra, reinscribedhere in the EarthlyParadisein the reckoning
of the poet's youthful love-experience, is definitively abandoned:
Di penter si mi punse ivi l'ortica,
che di tutte altre cose qual mi torse
piiunel suo amor, piCumi si f6 nemica.
(31:85-87)
To take the full measure of the reinscription of elements of the
petroseinto the pilgrim'sreunion with Beatricerequiresa return to an
earlier moment of his journey in the Commedia,to an earlier evoca-
tion of a powerful female figure: to the threatened appearance of
Medusa in Inferno9. Dante's so-called rimepetroseare so called, of
course, because of the "hardness"of their unrelenting subject. But
Pietra'sstony resistance works its fateful effect in turn on the pro-
tagonist of these poems, in such a way that he incurs the constant
threat of "petrification"-that is to say, that he confronts the threat
elsewhere representedby the Medusa.21It is no less relevant,though
less often observed, that in the second of the "pargoletta"poems,
whose thematic affinities with the petroseare evident despite their
markedlydifferent style, the Medusa legend subtends the poet's ex-
pression of his fate:
encounters with other poets including Forese; he identifies the "pargoletta" to whom
Beatrice alludes, however, as the young girl of the earlier series, not with the petrose.
For the essential link between the two female figures as "i poli estremi di un'es-
perienza anzitutto scritturale (non tanto sentimentale)," see Raoul Blomme, "Il rap-
porto tematico tra Beatrice e Pietra," Revue des Langues Vivantes, 43 (1977): 153-59.
Sylvia Huot, however, cites a passage from "Donne ch'avete intelletto d'amore" in-
cluded in the Vita Nuova to argue that "Beatrice actually does have an effect quite
similar to that ascribed to the donna pietra when beheld by those 'of villainous heart'-
presumably, those who look upon her lustfully"; the issue, then, would be the proper
"reading" of physical beauty and of desire. See "Dante's Poetics of Love: Some Re-
marks about the Commedia and Its Vernacular Context," Quaderni d'italianistica, 4
(1983): 79.
21 Giuseppe Mazzotta finds that the myth of Medusa "explicitly governs" the poem
"Cosi nel mio parlar," in which the lover is cast as "an unsuccessful Perseus, without a
Chi guarderiagiAmai sanza paura
ne li occhi d'esta bella pargoletta,
che m'hanno concio si, che non s'aspetta
per me se non la morte, che m't dura?
Vedete quanto ! forte mia ventura:
ch6 fu tra I'altrela mia vita eletta
per dare essemplo altrui, ch'uom non si metta
in rischio di mirarla sua figura.
(1-8)
In terms of the petrifying power of this female figure, the link be-
tween Pietra or the "pargoletta" and the Medusa of the Commedia is
immediately evident to the reader familiar with both texts.'
There is yet another indication, of a different order, that Dante
deliberately brought the experience of the petroseto bear on his rep-
resentation of Medusa. Here the closest link is with the first of the
petrose,"Io son venuto," the only one of the four petrosein which the
lady's influence does not effect or threaten the lover's transforma-
tion. The commiatoof the poem, which contains the most explicit
statement of its themes, stops short of that identification: the lover,
demanding what he is to become with the return of spring's amorous
weather when he alone has burned throughout the cold of winter,
answers his own question: he will be "quello ch'e d'un uom di
marmo, / se in pargoletta fia per core un marmo." "CioG," explain
Barbi and Pernicone in their commentary, "sara morto," and Foster
and Boyde concur: "'A marble man,' a 'statue,' is of course a dead
man";23 nonetheless the suggestion, particularly in its attribution to
the protagonist of the victim's role, also evokes images of the petrify-
ing power of Medusa. The primary link between "Io son venuto" and
the Medusa episode, however, lies in the recurrence of rhyme-words
from "Io son venuto" in Inferno9, of which the most dramatic is the
triple rhyme ALTO-SMALTO-ASSALTO. While in the first of the
shield and unable to sustain the lady'sglance";see Dante,Poetof theDesert(Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1979), 285-86.
a See Judith D. Suther and R. V. Griffin, "Dante'sUse of the Gorgon Medusa in
Inferno IX,"KentuckyRomanceQuarterly, 27 (t98o): 81-82. Earliernotations of the con-
nection are cited by Blomme, "'Pietra' davanti alla critica,"47. See also Marianne
Shapiro, Woman Earthly and Divine in the "Comedy"of Dante (Lexington: University
Press of Kentucky, 1975), 133.
23 M. Barbiand V. Pernicone, eds., Rimedella maturitd e dell'esilio(Firenze:F. Le
Monnier, 1969),554; Fosterand Boyde, Dante's Lyric Poetry, 2: 264.
petrose these rhymes figure in the depiction of a wintry nature and in
Inferno 9 in the cries of the Furies calling for the appearance of Me-
dusa, there is a significant correlation between the two moments, as
John Freccero has noted: "in a passage which threatens petrification,
is recalled, in a reified, concrete way, precisely the poem that de-
scribed such a reification at the hands of a kind of Medusa."24 It
is hardly by coincidence that two additional rhyming pairs of "Jo
son venuto" are found also in Inferno 9: SERRA in rhyme with
GUERRA, CARCO with ARCO (with the slight variation of the plu-
ral: CARCHE / ARCHE).25 If, as Freccero argues, the Medusa of In-
ferno 9 represents "a sensual fascination and potential attrapment,
precluding all further progress," then the threat comes from Dante's
own past as poet-precisely that past recorded in the rimepetrose.26
Let us then return to the "pargoletta" of Beatrice's allusion, and to
the "petrified"' Dante. As we know, the Dante-pilgrim of the Comme-
dia did not see Medusa; avoiding the threatened confrontation and
aided by angelic intervention, he did "return above," to continue the
arduous journey that has brought him at last to the Earthly Paradise.
But he has suffered petrification, in the experience recounted with
passionate force in the rime petrose, and the evocation of his petrified
state is critical now to the demonstration of his contrition. The contri-
tion of the penitent, attested by his tears, is expressed in a compel-
ling metaphor:
lo gel che m'era intorno al col ristretto,
spirto e acqua fessi, e con angoscia
de la bocca e de li occhi usci del petto.
(30: 97-99)
Rudy Spraycar has explicated this moment in terms of the "lago del
cor," locus of the poet's fear in InfernoI, linking it through the frozen
lake of Cocytus to the sin of pride and pointing to patristic sources
that associate the melting away of sin with conversion; he further
proposes that the recall of the punishment of traitors, eyes frozen
over with tears, suggests that Dante had been a traitor to Beatrice.27
The depiction of the frozen lake at the center of Hell is itself in-
4 "Medusa: The Letter and the Spirit," Yearbookof Italian Studies, 1972, 12-13.
25
In addition, "S'ASCONDE" appears at the rhyme in both components, although
coupled with different terms ("fronde" vs. "onde," "sponde").
2 Freccero, "Medusa," 9-1.
27 "Dante's lago del cor," Dante Studies, 96 (1978): 1-ig. Francis Ferguson makes the
debted, however, to the petrose,and the commentary tradition link-
ing sin with the image of the frozen heart casts light on the "petrifi-
cation" of the lover in the petrose as wel.28 In the itinerary of the
protagonist that moves from the opening verses of the VitaNuovato
the EarthlyParadiseof the poemasacro,the time when his heart was
frozen was the time of the rimepetrose,with all the peril implied by
that hardened state, and it is in the reunion with Beatricein which
the "pargoletta"is mentioned that the melting of his heart finally
occurs. In this particulardramaticsense, it is only then that the en-
trapment represented by the spell of the "pargoletta"comes to an
end.29
In addition to these multiple thematic correlations, other lexical
and stylistic indices are part of the cluster that signal the subtextual
presence of the rimepetrosein these canti of the Purgatorio.Twice in
the course of the pilgrim'sreunion with Beatrice, first in relation to
the melting of the ice about his heart and again in relation to his
shamed hesitation to look upon Beatrice,inner conflict and its reso-
lution are suggested through dramaticnature-similesvery like those
that appear first in Dante's poetic practice in "Io son venuto" and
"Amor,tu vedi ben."3?Examining more closely the second of these
moments, we find that when Beatrice follows her allusion to the
"pargoletta"with the command that the penitent raise his downcast
eyes and gaze on her, the nature-simile to which Dante resorts to
convey the effort involved in performingthat action depicts a violent
uprooting:
same association with betrayal: see Dante's Drama of the Mind (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1953), 187-89.
'8 See Giorgio Varanini, IICanto XXXII dell'Inferno,Lectura Dantis Scaligera (Firenze:
F. Le Monnier, 1962), 19. A passage from Gregory's Moralia in Jobon misdirected desire
is particularly pertinent to Beatrice's rebuke:
"mens quanto per mundi concupiscentiamin exterioraresolvitur,tanto per inaffectionemsuam
interius obduratur,et torpore insensibili fringescitintrinsecus, quia amore damnabii mollescit
foris."(PL76, col. 583;cited in Spraycar,3.)
29 Interestingly, the moment is anticipated in an earlier passage: as the fearful pil-
grim hesitates to enter the purifying flames and is urged on by Virgil with the re-
minder that "tra Beatrice e te e questo muro," he recalls the response of Piramus to the
name of Thisbe to record that "cosi, la mia durezza fatta molla, / mi volsi al savio
duca, udendo il nome / che ne la mente sempre mi rampolla" (Purg. 27: 40-42). Sylvia
Huot relates Beatrice here to Medusa and this moment to Inferno9 as "a further step in
this conversion process" ("Dante's Poetics of Love," 77).
3" These representations of nature are among the important developments in
Dante's poetic repertoire marked by the petrose;see Purgatorio30: 85-93 and 31: 70-73,
Con men di resistenza si dibarba
robusto cerro, o vero al nostralvento
o vero a quel de la terradi larba,
ch'io non levai al suo comando il mento.
(31: 70-73)
This is the single occurrence of the verb "dibarba" in the Commedia,31
just as the occurrence of the noun "pargoletta" is unique to this
canto, and it too has allusive force, in its recall of the entrapment
represented by love for the Pietra of "Al poco giorno":
e 'I mio disio per6 non cangia il verde,
si e barbatone la dura petra
che parlae sente come fosse donna.
(4-6)
Again, in "Io son venuto," the unchanging love for Pietra is repre-
sented as a thorn, one never to be removed from the heart of Love's
helpless victim:
e la crudele spina
pero Amor di cor non la mi tragge;
per ch'io son fermo di portarlasempre
ch'io sarb in vita, s'io vivesse sempre.
(49-52)
Gazing upon the triumphal display of Beatrice's beauty in the Earthly
Paradise, the poet records his renewed allegiance to her in terms of
another thorn, one with equally definitive effect:
Di penter si mi punse ivi l'ortica

che di tutte altre cose qual mi torse
pifi nel suo amor, piuimi se fe nemica.
(31: 85-87)
In Dante's personal and poetic itinerary, it has been suggested, the
return to Beatrice is the result of a catharsis;32 certainly it is a cathar-
sis that is reenacted in the penitential scene in the Earthly Paradise.
Thus it is that Dante carefully orders the detail of his pilgrim's re-
union with Beatrice, not only to evoke the experience of the rime
and the observations of G. Contini in his edition of the Rime (Torino: Einaudi, 1965),
152-53.
31 "Abbarbicato' occurs with the meaning of "rooted" in Inferno25: 58.
32 See the comments of Giorgio Petrocchi on "Beatrice, a dieci anni dall'esilio," in
L'Ultimadea (Roma: Bonacci, 1977), 121-36.
petrose, but to dramatize its transcendence. In response to Beatrice's
stern rebuke, the thorn that he had proclaimed himself sure to bear
eternally is replaced by the sharp sting of the nettle of remorse; in
Beatrice's presence, the ice surrounding his heart melts at last; when
he at last raises his eyes and looks on her, the violent image of up-
rooting dramatically renders the wrenching free of a heart that had
been "barbato in petra"; and the affirmation of Beatrice's sublime,
triumphant beauty definitively cancels the impact, the "colpo," of
that fatal beauty that had captivated the poet of the rime petrose.
The reevaluation of the pilgrim's earthly experience of love is criti-
cal at this point of his itinerary because without it his journey cannot
continue. Not only does Beatrice replace Pietra as the fixed sign in
the lover's universe; the entire fatalistic and ill-fated cosmos of the
petrose, that introduced with the astrological determinism of "lo son
venuto al punto de la rota," is replaced by a cosmos in which divine
grace, not human passions governed by fatal astral influence, deter-
mines human destiny:
Non pur per ovra de le rote magne,
che drizzan chascun seme ad alcun fine
secondo che le stelle son compagne,
ma per larghezza di grazie divine,
che si alti vapori hanno a lor piova,
che nostre viste la non van vicine,
questi fu tal ne la sua vita nova
virtualmente,ch'ogne abito destro
fatto averebbein lui mirabilprova.
(Purg. 30: 109-17)
In this benevolent cosmos, despite the fact that this man of great
promise "tanto gitu cadde, che tutti argomenti / a la salute eran gia
corti, / fuor che mostrarli le perdute genti," Beatrice herself visited
"l'uscio d'i morti" to make the journey of the Commediapossible (31:
135-39). The experience of the petrose, seen in this proper perspec-
tive reaffirmed by Beatrice in the introduction to her rebuke, is at last
read correctly by the penitent as the deviation that it had represented
from the proper course in which she had once led him; it is this
recognition that at last prompts the full "scotto di pentimento" (30:
144-45) without which Lethe, as Beatrice tells us, may not be
passed.
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The "Rime Petrose" and the Purgatorial Palinode

Author(s): Sara Sturm-Maddox

Volume LXXXIV Spring, 1987 Number 2

The Rime Petrose and the

?: 1987 The University of North CarolinaPress

This passage has one term of immediate intertextual resonance: the

commentoconsiders Beatrice'sremarkan allusion to Dante's lyric "I'

the two retrospective assessments is further suggested by the fact

Following the penitent's eventual tears of contrition and his immer-

E io, che son constante piu che petra

Recalling the experience of the Vita Nuova as she is revealed once

Contini, "Dante come personaggio-poeta,"and more recently Barolini,Dante'sPoets,

shield and unable to sustain the lady'sglance";see Dante,Poetof theDesert(Princeton:

Di penter si mi punse ivi l'ortica

L'Ultimadea (Roma: Bonacci, 1977), 121-36.

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