Commentary Purg II 13-18

This is, perhaps surprisingly, the first simile of Purgatorio (there was a brief comparison at [Purg I 119-120]; another at verse 11, just above).  While the first canto (vv. 19-21) involved a special relationship to Venus, this canto turns instead to Mars, treated here, as was Venus there, as morning star.  In his Convivio, where Dante associates the first seven heavens with the liberal arts, he says (Conv.II.xiii.20-24) that Mars may be compared to Music.  He concludes (24): 'Moreover, Music attracts to itself the human spirits, which are, as it were, principally vapors of the heart, so that they almost completely cease their activity; this happens likewise to the entire soul when it hears music, and the virtue of all of them, as it were, runs to the spirit of sense, which receives the sound' (tr. Lansing).  We shall see that these notions will come into play when Casella sings Dante's ode to the new pilgrims at the mountain's shore later in the canto.  Bernardino Daniello was perhaps the first commentator (DDP Daniello.Purg.II.13-18) to bring that passage in Convivio to bear on this text.  But the valence of the passage as it is reflected here puts the alluring red light of Mars (and, later, listening to music, which is what Mars signifies in the earlier text) into a negative correspondence with the alacrity and whiteness of the swiftly approaching angel.  Looking west toward Mars implies turning one's back on the sunrise to the east.  Porena's commentary (DDP Porena.Purg.II.13-15) observes that Dante, as a Tuscan, was acquainted with this view of the sea, one found on the western -- and not the eastern -- shore of the Italian peninsula.

      The opening verse of the simile has caused considerable difficulty because the early texts offered probably unacceptable readings and later attempts have been divided into two solutions, roughly as follows: either 'sul presso del mattino' (at the nearing of dawn) or 'sorpreso dal mattino' (covered over by the dawn).  This last is Petrocchi's solution, and we have followed it, if at a distance, in our translation.