Commentary Purg XXII 49-51

The reference of the adverb 'qui' (here) in this tercet is a matter of debate.  One should be aware that the notion that it refers to all of purgatory (rather than to this terrace alone) is of recent vintage and is intelligently opposed by Bosco/Reggio (DDP Bosco.Purg.XXII.49-51).  Further, if one examines all eighteen uses of the adverb by penitents who have speaking roles on the mountain, it is plain that only twice does it not refer to the particular terrace on which the speaker is found.  The only speakers who employ 'qui' to refer to the mountain generally are Statius ([Purg XXI 43]) and Forese Donati ([Purg XXIII 109]).  All others indicate only the present terrace, as follows: Oderisi ([Purg XI 70], [Purg XI 72], [Purg XI 88], [Purg XI 89], [Purg XI 122]); Sapia ([Purg XIII 107]); Pope Adrian ([Purg XIX 114], [Purg XIX 115], [Purg XIX 129], [Purg XIX 123]); Hugh Capet ([Purg XX 111], [Purg XX 122]); Statius ([Purg XXII 51]); Forese ([Purg XXIII 66], [Purg XXIV 16], [Purg XXIV 49]).  In short, there is every reason to believe that the reference is only to this particular terrace, the only one on which a particular sin and its opposite are purged.  None of the early commentators, in fact, even thinks of the possibility of such a strange interpretation, which has Statius belatedly present a general rule for purgatory only here, and which would have us imagine that on the terrace of Pride there were those who were abject, as well as, on that of Envy, souls who gave away their necessary belongings in an excess of charity, etc., thus justifying the notion that Dante had bought into the Aristotelian notion of the 'golden mean' in order to structure the moral order of purgatory.  That such was the case for avarice and prodigality in Inferno seems clear from the treatment of these two aspects of a single sin (see C.Inf.VII.25-30).  In Conv.IV.xvii.7 Dante does speak of the golden mean as an encompassing moral standard: 'Each of these virtues has two related enemies, that is, vices, one through excess and the other through shortfall.  These virtues constitute the mean between them, and they spring from a single source, namely from our habit of good choice' (tr. Lansing).  It is possible that Dante was planning to build the unwritten final eleven chapters of Convivio on the base of Aristotle's eleven moral virtues (see Hollander [Holl.2001.1], p. 49), but such a plan obviously was not used for the Commedia.

      The commentators were late to imagine that Statius's remark was meant to indicate a general law.  A first tentative movement in this direction occurs only with DDP Lombardi.Purg.XXII.49-50.  And it was only in the twentieth century that more definitive judgments began to be expressed, first by DDP Torraca.Purg.XXII.49-51 and then, most blatantly, by DDP Steiner.Purg.XXII.51.  Eventually a sort of compromise position is adopted, one that regards the remark as indicating a general disposition that is not, however, found exemplified in the other terraces, but only here: DDP Grabher.Purg.XXII.49-54, DDP Momigliano.Purg.XXII.49-51, DDP Porena.Purg.XXII.49-51, DDP Chimenz.Purg.XXII.49-51, DDP Fallani.Purg.XXII.49-51, DDP Giacalone.Purg.XXII.49-51 (but hedging his bet by allowing the older reading), DDP Singleton.Purg.XXII.50, DDP Pasquini.Purg.XXII.49-51, Chiavacci Leonardi (Chia.1994.1), p. 647.  The weakness of this position is obvious, since it makes Dante present a general law that has only this one specific application.  It is difficult to accept the view that these lines authorize the understanding that on all terraces sins and their opposites are repented.  Barolini (Baro.2000.2, pp. 86-87, 101-2) and the few commentators who preceded her in this reading take the adjective alcun as indeterminate, meaning 'any' in the most general sense, and qui as relating to all of the terraces of purgatory.  However, if 'here' indicates this terrace alone, then 'any' refers to some sin that is directly opposite to avarice, i.e., prodigality, as Bosco/Reggio (DDP Bosco.Purg.XXII.49-51) remind us that such determinate forms of alcun do (e.g., [Purg IV 80] and [Par IX 122]).  It therefore seems sensible to conclude that Dante employed Aristotle's golden mean only for the paired sins of avarice and prodigality, both in Inferno and here in the second cantica. For evidence that he was thinking very precisely along these lines when he presented the sin punished as avarice or prodigality, see Inferno VIII.48, where he refers to 'avarizia' as having 'il suo soperchio'; if avarice may be 'excessive,' it is then at least implicitly true that there is a 'golden mean' of avarice. And this seems clearly to be the case both here on the fifth terrace and back in the fourth circle.