Page 37 - GALIET EXILE: Dante IV+

Galiet & Galiet
to journey distant shores (Pur. 2, 31-33). Yet, a few passages remain of sails as symbols of criticism, purpose and warning. Purgatorio’s lit and singing realm, criticizes the spreading of Pilate’s ‘greedy sails’ against the temple (Pur. 20, 91-93). It encourages Statius’s purpose to hoist his ‘sail’ to follow Peter (Pur. 23, 61-65), and it warns seafarers against the haunting and deceiving siren’s calling of the sea (Pur. 19, 19-22). Dante’s melancholy in Purgatorio is an eternal tear. Dante’s exile is likened to the melting heart of departing seafarers. They, who bid farewell to floors and lore and treasures in drawers beloved, they, who, in the weary hours of night, the stars wore, they, who tossed and turned and did not snore longing for doors which had been closed (Pur. 8, 1-7).
3⁄4 They and they 3⁄4 day after day. Torn. 3⁄4
They, like Dante, toil upon toil and all alone in the sea they abhor; they, at the end of the hours that implore; they, who in whispering solitude awaken night’s quietude to mourn sore, they, who go on kindling memories of love and war and adored friends left ashore.
In Paradiso’s celestial orbs, too, Dante’s sailing seas have never been explored (Par. 2, 7-10). Yet in its denuded cantos of Beatrice’s light, Minerva’s wisdom fills Dante’s ‘sails’ as Apollo and the muses become breathless guides to Dante’s rhyming light. In poetry’s arms, they flee homewards through the heavens to find, in pearl, quill and flowered star, Dante’s Northern Star (Par. 2, 7-15). Luminescent Star of being and belonging, ser y pertenecer, that, on secret pathways shining, guides seafarers, pilgrims and magi to those harbours of their bliss, to the translucent heavens of the azure Empyrean, to radiant Bethlehems of the manger.
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