Simone Marchesi Dante’s Statius: Literary Autobiography and Textual Hermeneutics.

Autobiography: (Dante’s) Statius on himself (and Virgil).

Nel tempo che ‘l buon Tito, con l’aiuto del sommo rege, vendicò le fóra

In the time when worthy Titus, aided by the King most high, avenged the wounds

ond' uscì 'l sangue per Giuda venduto, from which had poured the blood that Judas sold, col nome che più dura e più onora 'on earth I bore the name that most endures era io di là," rispuose quello spirto, and honors most,' replied that spirit. "famoso assai, ma non con fede ancora. 'Fame I had found, but not yet faith.

Tanto fu dolce mio vocale spirto

che, tolosano, a sé mi trasse Roma, So sweet was my poetic voice that Rome drew me from Toulouse and deemed me worthy

dove mertai le tempie ornar di mirto. to have my brows adorned with myrtle. Stazio la gente ancor di là mi noma: 'My name is Statius. On earth men often speak it. cantai di Tebe, e poi del grande Achille; I sang of Thebes and then of great Achilles, ma caddi in via con la seconda soma. but fell along the way with the second burden. Al mio ardor fuor seme le faville, 'The sparks that kindled the fire in me che mi scaldar, de la divina fiamma came from the holy flame onde sono allumati più di mille; from which more than a thousand have been lit-- de l'Eneïda dico, la qual mamma 'I mean the Aeneid. When I wrote poetry fummi, e fummi nutrice, poetando: it was my mamma and my nurse. sanz' essa non fermai peso di dramma. Without it, I would not have weighed a dram. E per esser vivuto di là quando 'To have lived on earth when Virgil lived visse Virgilio, assentirei un sole I would have stayed one year's sun longer than I owed più che non deggio al mio uscir di bando." before I came forth from my exile.' (Purgatorio XXI.82-102)

Hermeneutics: Virgil on Statius and Statius on Virgil.

Two questions.

The moral topography of the afterlife “Come poté trovar dento al tuo seno loco avarizia, tra cotanto senno, di quanto per tua cura fosti pieno?” “How could avarice find room / amidst such wisdom in your breast, / the wisdom that you nourished with such care?” (Pg. XXII.22-24)

Pagan author and Christian text “Per quello che Clïò teco lì tasta, non par che ti facesse ancor fedele la fede, sanza qual ben far non basta” “It does not seem from what you wrote with Clio’s help, / that you had found as yet the faith, / that faith without which good works fail.” (vv. 58-60).

“Or sappi che avarizia fu partita troppo da me, e questa dismisura migliaia di lunari hanno punita.” “Know then that avarice was much too far / removed from me and that this lack of measure / lunar months in thousands now have punished.” (ibid. 34-6)

“E pria ch’io conducessi i Greci a’ fiumi di Tebe poetando, ebb’io battesmo; ma per paura chiuso cristian fu’mi.” “I was baptized before, in my verses, / I had led the Greeks to the rivers of Thebes, / but, from fear, I stayed a secret Christian, / long pretending I was still a pagan.” (ibid. 88-91)

Two answers.

“E se non fosse ch’io drizzai mia cura, quand’io intesi là dove tu chiame, crucciato quasi a l’umana natura: ‘Perché non reggi tu, o sacra fame de l’oro l’appetito de’ mortali?’, voltando sentirei le giostre grame.” “And had I not reformed my inclination / when I came to understand the lines in which, / as if enraged at human nature, you cried out: / ‘Why cannot you, o holy hunger/ for gold, restrain the appetite of mortals?’” (ibid. 37-42)

“Facesti come quei che va di notte, che porta il lume dietro e sé non giova, ma dopo sé fa le persone dotte, quando dicesti: ‘Secol si rinnova; torna giustizia e primo tempo umano, e progenïe scende da ciel nova.’” “You were as one who goes by night, carrying / the light behind him—it is no help to him, / but instructs all those who follow—/ when you said ‘The centuries turn new again. / Justice returns with the first age of man, / and new progeny descends from heaven.’” (ibid. 67-72)

Two counter-readings.

Quid non mortalia pectora cogis / Auri sacra fames. (Aen. III, 56-7) “To what, accursed lust for gold, do you/ not drive the hearts of men?”

Iam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna, / Iam nova progenies caelo demittitur alto. (Ecl. IV, 6-7)

“The Virgin returns and the kingdom of Saturn; / now a new progeny from heaven high descends.”

‘E in infamia tutto ‘l monte gira Polinestòr ch’ancise Polidoro’ (Pg. XX, 114-5)

‘In disgrace the name of Polymnestor, for slaying Polydorus, circles all the mountain.’

“Virgo” nanque vocabatur iustitia, quam etiam Astream vocabant”

“Justice was called ‘the Virgin’ and also ‘Astrea.’” (Monarchia I, xi, 1)