Commentary Purg II 124-132

This third and final simile of the canto likens the new pilgrims to doves (for the three programmatic references to these birds in the Commedia, here and in [Inf V 82] and [Par XXV 19], see Shoaf [Shoa.1975.1]).  See Hollander (Holl.1990.1), p. 41: 'Their saved souls hunger on high, but their appetitive natures are not yet wrung dry of earthly longing.  Thus they are careless in their ingestion (see Matthew 13:36-43) for the parable of the wheat and the tares alluded to in their failure to make a decision between 'biado o loglio').  If music be the food of love, there is also a heavenly music.  We and the pilgrims know that this is true.  They have sung it themselves in this very place.'