Commentary Purg XXIV 106-111

This simile possibly reflects a passage from Convivio (Conv.IV.xii.16) in which Dante speaks of the natural love of human souls for God, their maker, which is easily drawn off course: 'Thus we see little children setting their desire first of all on an apple, and then, growing older, desiring to possess a little bird, and then still later desiring to possess fine clothes, then a horse, and then a woman, and then modest wealth, then greater riches, and then still more' (tr. Lansing).  The central elements of this image (a man catching the hungry attention of a child by holding up an apple) are deployed again in [Purg XXVII 45].