Commentary Purg XXIV 1-3

The conversation between Forese and Dante continues.  We have not heard Virgil's voice since the fifteenth verse of the last canto.  We will not hear it again until the next canto ([Purg XXV 17]).  This is his longest silence since he entered the poem in its first canto (see C.Inf.XXX.37-41).  He would seem to have been moved aside in response to Dante's interest in the encounter with Forese and concern with exploring the nature of his own most particular poetic practice, the subject at the core of this canto.