Commentary Purg XXXIII 31-33

Before she presents her prophecy, Beatrice charges Dante with the responsibility for reporting it precisely, not in the mode of a man who is talking in his sleep.  Almost all the commentators take the passage literally and as applying in some general way.  But Beatrice's words are very hard on poor Dante, since she makes it clear that, at least in her (infallible) opinion, his actual words, uttered at some previous time, have indeed been correctly characterized in this way.  But when?  Perhaps the later passage in this canto ([Purg XXXIII 85-90]) that is devoted to his previous intellectual meanderings may shed some light on exactly what she means.  For now the subject is left unexplored.

      The importance of the rebuke, which passes mainly unobserved in the commentaries, is underlined by its difference from a similar rebuke.  Mattalia (DDP Mattalia.Purg.XXXIII.33) is alone in thinking of that one (if he draws no conclusion from his notice of it): [Purg XV 120-123], when Virgil believes that Dante, beholding an ecstatic vision, is merely drunk or asleep.  Now Beatrice reverses the situation: when Dante has considered himself 'awake' and eloquent, he has been, in fact, 'talking in his sleep.'