Commentary Purg XXX 85-99

For a history of the exegesis examining Dante's tears, mainly given over to attack and counterattack over the issue of the contorted and artificial nature of the simile, see Mazzoni (Mazz.1988.1), pp. 180-89.  Mazzoni goes on (pp. 189-90) to bring three sources to bear: first two similes in Ovid: the melting of Ovid's Narcissus in his self-love (Metam. III.486-490, a passage discussed in this context in the nineteenth century by Luigi Venturi and Cesari, according to Trucchi [DDP Trucchi.Purg.XXX.88-90]; and see Brownlee [Brow.1978.1] and Shoaf [Shoa.1989.1]) and the liquefaction of Biblis when her brother, Caunus, rejects her incestuous love (Metam. IX.659-665, also previously noted by Trucchi [DDP Trucchi.Purg.XXX.91-93]).  Mazzoni's major interpretive novelty (pp. 207-212) lies in his seeing Dante's tears as reflecting the liquefaction in Psalm 147:16-18 as commented on by St. Augustine (In Ps. CXLVII Enarratio [Patrologia Latina, XXXVIII, col. 1931]): 'He gives snow like wool; he scatters the hoarfrost like ashes. / He casts forth his ice like morsels; who can stand before his cold? / He sends out his word, and melts [liquefacit] them; he causes his wind to blow, and the waters flow.'  Augustine's gloss has it that a sinner, 'frozen' in his sinfulness, may yet 'liquefy' and be saved.