Commentary Purg XXI 130-136

For the view that Statius is behaving passionally when it were better not to, see Heilbronn (Heil.1978.1). Stephany's rejoinder (Step.1983.1), pp. 142-43, is less than convincing. He finds it odd that Statius, having finished his purgation, should return to such a lower level of response. In his view, Virgil is imitating Christ when he asks Mary Magdalen not to touch Him ('noli me tangere' -- John 20:17). Stephany's discussion of that passage and its relationship to the two other major biblical resonances in this canto, those of the Samaritan woman and of the disciples on the road to Emmaus encountering the resurrected Jesus, as all being narratives that concern conversion, is close to Dante's text and telling. However, the tone of the episode clearly responds far more to Heilbronn's sense, if perhaps less sternly than she might have us believe. The scene is amusing and utterly human; Statius has for a moment re-entered his previous life, as even other saints might do, in the presence of Virgil. And even the protagonist, caught between the differing desires of the two classical poets, is apparently momentarily exempt from moral pressures. How might the saved Stephany respond, completing his purgation, finding himself in the presence of Dante? The poet's view of the completion of purgation, reflected in the protagonist's own 'free time' as he enters Eden, is not completely dissimilar to what we found in ante-purgatory, where the pressure on the souls is also less acute.

With regard to the supposed 'failed embrace' between Statius and Virgil, Hollander has argued (Holl.1975.1), p.359, that Dante's failed attempt to embrace Casella ([Purg II 76-81]), pointing to a physical impossibility, is countered in the successful exchange of embraces between Sordello and Virgil, both of whom are shades ([Purg VII 1-2], [Purg VII 15]). In both those scenes there is a desire to embrace that is either frustrated or accomplished. Here Statius desires to embrace Virgil but, once advised against doing so by the author of the Aeneid, wills not to. Since we know from Sordello's and Virgil's shared embraces that in fact shades are capable of embracing, we may not properly say, as most who deal with the scene do, that Virgil and Statius, 'being shades, cannot embrace,' or that they 'are not capable of embracing' Cecchetti [Cecc.1990.1], p. 107). They are perfectly capable of embracing; Virgil convinces Statius that it is not a fitting gesture in this higher realm. For another view of the supposedly problematic program of embraces see Iliescu (Ilie.1971.1). And see C.Purg.XIX.134-135 for the probable biblical source of a similar scene: Pope Adrian's refusal to accept Dante's obeisance. In the end Statius won't embrace Virgil because up here souls don't behave 'that way,' just as Virgil did not want to have his identity revealed for a similar reason. In support of this reading, see Wei Wei Yeo (Yeo.2006.1), p. 78, also suggesting that 'rather than arguing physical impossibility, the text implies the acknowledgment of inappropriateness as the reason....' Her citation is of Economou (Econ.1992.1), p. 76.