Dante and the early astronomers

by M. A. Orr

This curious passage has been otherwise interpreted by some commentators, and Scartazzini calls it “oscuro al superlativo,”[467] a riddle which still waits its Œdipus. According to him, “Titone” should be read “Titan,” the sun-god, and his mistress is Tethys the ocean, which is now shining not under his rays (“fuor delle braccia del suo dolce amico”[468]) but under the rays of the rising moon. This seems far-fetched, and the reading doubtful. In any case, it would indicate the same hour and the same phenomenon (moonrise).

Others think that the solar aurora is intended, and explain the “freddo animale”[469] as Pisces, and the “steps” as the watches of the night. But why a terrible tail should be ascribed to a fish is not clear, nor is it easy to see how the third step with which Night ascends could be the hour of dawn. Night, which circles opposite to the sun, surely reaches the culminating point and begins to descend at midnight, just as midday is “il colmo del dì.”[470] Moreover, the third watch would bring us at latest to a little before 3 a.m. To make the “steps” signs of the zodiac is no better; for if Libra, Scorpio, and Sagittarius have risen, it is midnight; what then can be shining in the east? and on whose forehead are the stars of Scorpio glittering?

On the other hand, all accords well if we accept the first interpretation—the light of the moon just about to rise whitening the eastern sky, some brilliant stars of Scorpio shining there, and Dante falling asleep at the third hour of the night, wearied after his sleepless nights, and the hardest day’s climb that he will have. We need not grudge him his long sleep of nearly twelve hours, as those do who take this passage to indicate midnight or early morning.[471]

When Dante wakes the sun has already been up for more than two hours, but a dream which had come to him in the early dawn, at the time when the swallow begins to twitter, has had its counterpart in the truth, that the lady Lucia came at that time and carried him up the mountain side, leaving him outside the Gate of Purgatory when the day was bright.

When this Gate has been passed through, a narrow chasm between the rocks has to be climbed, and the passage is so difficult that it is at least an hour before the poets emerge on the open space of the First Cornice. For the waning moon has already set, and as she has lost another half hour or so during the night, the time of her setting this morning was about 9 a.m.

When Dante next notices the position of the sun, which he is too intent to do for some time, they have travelled some distance along the First Cornice, with its outer edge on their right, and the sixth handmaid is returning from the service of the day, that is, the sixth hour is ended: it is midday, and they have spent nearly three hours here, looking at the rock sculptures and conversing with the spirits.

The ascent to the Second Cornice is made with marvellously little fatigue, as Virgil had promised. There they at first find no one to direct them, so Virgil looks at the sun, and turns westward towards it, taking it as their guide, and they walk for about a mile before encountering any spirits in this circle.

The stairway to the next Cornice is reached at the time of vespers, that is, 3 p.m.; and Dante describes the position of the sun by saying that the portion of sky which it still had to traverse before evening was equal to the portion which is brought into view between the beginning of the day and the end of the third hour, that is, it was three hours before sunset; and he compares this ceaseless motion of the sky, which according to the Ptolemaic system caused the motion of the sun, to an ever-playing child. We need not particularly enquire whether he is thinking of the heaven of the sun, or the Primum Mobile: it may be either, but is most likely simply the diurnal movement in general, made strikingly evident by the sun. The sun’s rays now strike their faces, for they have so far circled the mountain that they are walking towards the west; “Vespero là”[472] means in Purgatory, and “qui”[473] is Italy, where it is midnight now.

The sun is low when they reach the third Cornice, and when they emerge from the dense cloudy fog which here envelopes the spirits, Dante gradually sees the ball of the sun as when mists clear away, and he sees that it is just about to set. In fact the low shores at the foot of the mountain are already in shadow. Virgil urges that they make the ascent to the next Circle before darkness comes, and, as each ascent is easier than the last, they are able just to reach the summit before the sun is quite gone. Here Dante sees the stars begin to appear, while he is wondering at the strange law which robs him of power to proceed (as Sordello had warned them) after the sun has set.

They employ this time of forced inaction by talking of the sins which are punished in the several Circles, until all Dante’s questions are answered, and he is beginning to fall asleep. It is at this moment that he first mentions the moon: she is glowing, shaped like a bucket in her present phase, and the stars are paled by her light. She is “belated almost till midnight,” if the epithet “tarda” belongs to her; if it applies to “mezza notte,” then it is almost late midnight when she is seen paling the stars. She ought to have risen about ten o’clock, but Dante does not speak of her rising, so this may mean simply that it was moonlight and starlight at the time of which he is about to speak, viz. nearly the late hour of midnight; or else that since he is now on the northern slope of the mountain, and the moon is in a southern sign, she did not become visible to him till towards midnight. In any case, the “quasi” shows that he is only giving us a rough idea of the time.