Commentary Purg III 46-48

There is a sharp dividing line between the elegiac passage devoted to Virgil's consideration of his failure ([Purg III 22-45]) and the scene that begins here, with the description of the sheer wall of the mountain and the first attempt at an ascent.  For an appreciation of the nonetheless unitary nature of this canto as a whole, see Binni (Binn.1955.1), p. 9.