Commentary Purg VIII 37-39

Genesis 3:14-15 is another text visible behind the scenes of this drama (as Christopher McElroy, Princeton '72, suggested in a classroom many years ago), God's curse upon the serpent and the conjoined prophecy of the the woman's seed who will bruise the serpent's head and have his heel bruised as a result, taken by Christian exegetes -- and surely by Dante among them -- to refer to the Crucifixion.  Both these Cherubs come from the bosom of Mary, that 'anti-Eve,' to guard the valley, now safe from harm, as we shall see, against the serpent.  This garden, foreshadowing the garden of Eden that lies above, has been reopened to humanity, as has been that higher place.  Paradise has been regained.  See Iannucci (Iann.1978.1), p. 1: 'We have an audience watching a kind of mystery play which contains both paradise lost and paradise regained.'

      For the palindromatic opposition Ave/Eva see Pietro di Dante (DDP Pietro1.Par.XXXII.4-6 [the locus of most commentators' discussion of this topos]): 'And the holy men say that, just as sickness was born from that most prideful one, that is, Eve, just so its cure springs from that most humble one, that is, Mary.'  And thus, Pietro continues, the 'Ave' of the 'Hail, Mary' counters the effect of Eve, whose name it spells backward.  Commenting on this canto, J. S. Carroll (DDP Carroll.Purg.VIII.22-30) ties in that subject to this scene: 'this contrast between Mary and Eve is a favourite subject with early and mediaeval theologians, in sign of which Eva is reversed and becomes the Ave of the Angel's salutation, as in the Ave, Maris Stella hymn: Sumens illud Ave / Gabrielis ore, / Funda nos in pace / Mutans Evae nomen' (Taking that 'Ave' from the mouth of Gabriel, put us at peace, changing the name of Eve).