C+Inf+II+7-9

The passage including the poem's first invocation is challenging and has caused serious interpretive difficulty. Why does Dante invoke the Muses in a Christian work? What does alto ingegno (lofty genius) refer to? Is the invocation of two powers ('Muses' and 'lofty genius') or of three (the mente, or 'memory,' of verse 8)? For a discussion of these points see Holl.1990.2, pp. 98-100. The positions taken there have it that the 'muses' are the devices of poetic making that the individual poet may master (see DDP Grandgent.Inf.II.Proemio: 'Dante probably believed that the Muses, even to the ancients, were only a figure of speech, a metaphor for poetic inspiration or art; so in V.N.XXV.9 he says that Horace, calling upon the Muse, "parla... alla sua scienza medesima"' [addresses... his own capacities]), that the 'lofty genius' is not Dante's, but God's, and that only these two elements are invoked, while 'mente' is merely put forward as having been effective in recording the facts of the journey (and is surely not 'invoked,' as the very language of the passage makes plain). In this formulation, here and in some of his later invocations Dante is asking for divine assistance in conceptualizing the matter of his poem so that it may resemble his Creator, its source, while also asking for the help of the 'muses' in finding the most appropriate expressive techniques for that conceptualization. Thus he is asking for God's help in shaping the vision and that of the 'muses' in making it rhyme, deploy compelling tropes, etc. As for the raw content, that he has through his own experience; he requires no external aid for it. What he does need is conceptual and expressive power, alto ingegno and the arte represented by the 'muses.' It is worth noting that ingegno and arte are joined in four later passages in the poem, [Purg IX 125], [Purg XXVII 130], [Par X 43], [Par XIV 117]. For a study of the meaning of the word ingegno in its 27 appearances (twice as the verb ingegnare) in the Commedia see Dumol (Dumo.1998.1).

It is, given Dante's fondness for the number of Beatrice, nine, difficult to believe that the fact that there are nine invocations in the poem may be accidental (see Holl.1976.2). For perhaps the first reckoning that accounts for all nine invocations see Fabb.1910.1. It is curious that few commentators have noted the fact that there are, in fact, nine invocations (and only nine) in the poem. (For only the latest miscount see Merc.1998.1). They are present as follows: [Inf II 7], [Inf XXXII 10-12], [Purg I 7-12], [Purg XXIX 37-42], [Par I 13-21], [Par XVIII 83-88], [Par XXII 112-123], [Par XXX 97-99], [Par XXXIII 67-75].

That Dante has 'delayed' his invocation has caused notice. What perhaps has not drawn notice is that, in a sense, he is 'outdoing' Virgil in this as well. For Virgil, too, 'delays' his opening invocation in the Aeneid, where it only occurs eight lines into the first book ({Virg.Aen.I.8-11}), where Homer's two epics both open with invocations in their very first lines.