Commentary Purg XXI 2-3

The obvious reference to the passage in John's gospel (4:5-15) has not escaped many readers.  The Samaritan woman who finds Jesus, unprepared for the task of drawing water, at her well, ends up being eager to taste the 'water' that he offers as replacement for that which seems so necessary at noon of a warm day in the desert, for it 'fiet in eo fons aquae salientis in vitam aeternam' ([italics added] shall become in him a fountain of water springing up into life everlasting).  In the Vulgate the present participle salientis may refer to the water or indeed to the drinker, rising up into eternal life.  It is worth keeping this potential grammatical ambiguity in mind, for that second reading applies precisely to the condition of Statius, who has just now come to that moment in his posthumous existence: he is ready to take on the life of a soul in paradise; he himself is ready to salire (rise up).

      Strangely enough, there is dispute among the commentators as to the metaphoric nature of the water offered by Jesus.  For the first quarter millennium all who dealt with this question offered the obvious interpretation: divine grace.  Then in the nineteenth century, beginning with Portirelli (DDP Portirelli.Purg.XXI.1-6), some interpreters were of the opinion that the water referred either to human knowledge of God or to that knowledge possessed alone by God.  Another group, the first of them Tommaseo (DDP Tommaseo.Purg.XXI.1-3), thought that it signified 'truth,' although exactly which kind varied, from Porena's (DDP Porena.Purg.XXI.1-6) sense that for Dante it meant truth in general to Giacalone's (DDP Giacalone.Purg.XXI.1-6) view that it means the truth found in Revelation alone.  Surely the early commentators were correct.  The water that the Samaritan woman asks for is that of eternal life, which comes alone from the grace of God.

      As some commentators have pointed out, John's word for the Samaritan is mulier (woman), while Dante has used a diminutive (femminetta).  Giacalone (DDP Giacalone.Purg.XXI.1-6) thinks of the form more as a 'commiserative' than as a 'diminutive,' i.e., we are to think of this woman's absolute ordinariness as an encouragement to our own need for exactly such satisfaction of our 'thirst.'