Commentary Purg III 79-87

The sole extended comparison of the canto centers attention on the need for faith untroubled by reason.  These sheep, following and imitating their bellwether, are presented positively for their humility and faithfulness.  See Lansing (Lans.1977.1), pp. 47-53, for a discussion of this simile, contrasting the humility exemplified here in Manfred (whom we shall soon come to understand is the 'bellwether' in the simile), whose life was marked by the opposite vice, presumption, in his opposition to the Church.  In one of his typical outbursts against his intellectual enemies in Convivio, Dante calls them stupid and compares them to sheep (Conv.I.xi.9-10), those sheep that follow their leader in jumping into a ravine a mile deep (is that phrasing, 'mille passi,' remembered in the same phrase at verse 68, above?  Frankel [Fran.1989.1], p. 124, is of that opinion).  Citation of this passage in Convivio was perhaps first brought into play by Daniello (DDP Daniello.Purg.III.79-84), but it is only recently that readers have begun to understand that the ovine images in this simile work against the assertion found in the Convivial outburst.  Its prideful, even presumptuous, tone is here countermanded by the poet's better understanding of the virtues of sheep, as the arrogance of prideful philosophizing gives way to Christian piety.

      In his commentary to this passage, Singleton notes the appropriateness of the 77th Psalm (77:52 [78:52]), recapitulating the Exodus with these words: 'But [God] made his own people go forth like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.'  It seems clear that such traditional Judeo-Christian images of the flock of the just govern this simile.