Commentary Inf XXIV 91-96

The scene, with its inhabitants naked, afraid, and trying to hide, evokes, as Hollander has argued (Holl.1983.2), p. 34, the description of Adam and Eve hiding from God in the Garden of Eden after they have sinned (Genesis 3:9-10): 'Vocavitque Dominus Deus Adam, et dixit ei: "Ubi es?" Qui ait, "Vocem tuam audivi in paradiso et timui, eo quod nudus essem, et abscondi me"' (And the Lord God called Adam and asked, 'Where are you?' And Adam said, 'I heard your voice in the garden and I grew afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself'). Hollander goes on to examine nine more moments in this scene that reflect the 'primal scene' of thievery in Eden, including the parodic version of the fig leaves with which Adam and Eve covered their loins in (Genesis 3:7) found here in vv. 95-96. See also (Beal.1983.1), pp. 103-05, for resonances of the Edenic scene in this passage.

The heliotrope was a stone that supposedly had the power to render its possessor invisible, as Boccaccio's Calandrino was urged to believe by his trickster friends (Decameron VIII.3). See Ciof.1937.1.