Statius’s Homage to Vergil

One of the happiest moments in the Commedia occurs in Purgatorio 21 when three great epic poets discover themselves brought together by unusual circumstances to participate in a symposium of kindred spirits. I am referring to the episode in which Statius, newly resurrected from the rigors of a long-term period of penitence, comes to realize that he finds himself in the presence of Vergil, whose inspirational epic poetry served not only as the perfect literary model for his Thebaid, but more importantly as the very vehicle of his soul’s salvation. This is one of those rare scenes of supreme recognition in the Commedia, and in many ways it is the most joyful and memorable. Occurring as it does along the pathway up the mountain to Eden that lies at the top of Purgatory, it comprises nothing less than a shameless celebration of epic poets and epic poetry that amounts to a miniature pre-Eden Eden, an audacious moment of respite, a brief suspension from the usual injunction to make haste, to waste no time along the way that leads ever upward. Some critics have expressed shock at hearing Statius confess a willingness to have spent more time in Purgatory if only he might have lived in Vergil’s day, others incredulity that Dante should have saved Statius, a lesser poet of the Silver Age, while consigning Vergil to Limbo and eternal damnation, and others still moral indignation that Dante the poet should tolerate Statius’s delay in ascending into heaven to avail himself of the ‘mundane’ opportunity to accompany Vergil for a spell in Purgatory. A truer reading of the episode suggests that it is an example of serio ludere, an interplay of the literary and the theological, and of the human and the divine. Statius, Vergil, Dante—three poets in conversation, meeting each other for the first and only time, each representing the pinnacle of a separate epoch of epic poetry which together delineate the passage from a pagan to a Christian world order, with Statius straddling both.

The appearance of Statius toward the latter stages of the ascent up the mountain Purgatory marks not only a unique event in the realm, but it heralds what is, in all likelihood, the most transparently human, humane and humanistic encounter Dante the pilgrim has with any soul he meets along his journey through the three realms of the otherworld. The episode, initiated in Purgatory 21, brims with the celebration of poetry’s power to communicate the highest human values, both secular and divine, and to link them to the most sublime of all possible experiences in the life of the human soul, the moment of the fallen self’s final resurrection, when it has become “puro e disposto a salir a le stelle” (Purg. 33.145). The presence of Statius in the Commedia spans more cantos than any other character, with the obvious exception of Dante’s two major guides, Vergil and Beatrice. His is not a cameo appearance but one of major significance and consequence. It could be said that Statius is the very heart and essence of Purgatory, its chief exemplar, the figure who most dramatizes the realm’s liturgical meaning and teleological imperative, the doctrine of the soul’s resurrection: he is the only example in the poem of a soul portrayed as experiencing the actual process of salvation, and the only active example of a pagan soul who converts to Christianity. And, yet, however important his status as convert and his role as figura Christi, his presence in the poem seems designed in part to afford Vergil greater relief, as if Dante the poet were concerned with providing a fitting occasion for expressing his own deep gratitude to Vergil as guide, voice of reason and, most especially, supreme poet (Inf. 1.82: “de li altri poeti onore e lume”), indeed, his poet (Inf. 1.85: “lo mio maestro e ‘l mio autore”) prior to his necessary departure. Statius takes the stage, but it is Vergil who rules the scene.

The episode in Purgatorio 21 and 22 derives its power and appeal from the aura...