At 14:05 11.03.98 +0000, you wrote:
>An angel draws seven P's into Dante's forehead with the point of a
>sword at the base of mountain in Purgatory [canto IX]. Here the
>physical mnemonic sign/blow is used to remind Dante of the sins he
>must wash away in purgatory. Like many medieval writers, he compares
>the act of memory as impressing a seal upon wax (James of Vitry
>thought children could learn better b/c they hadn't 'hardened' up
>yet).
Dear Jessalynn,
If I didn't overlook anything in Dante's text, the association of the
"sette P" with memory is your own interpretation, but not suggested by the
text itself, and the memory/wax comparisons occur in other places not
directly related to the seven letters, right? Your interpretation seems
possible, but I have some doubts. The seven letters are called "piaghe",
wounds, it is true, but the act of inscribing them is not exactly described
as a "blow" ("Sette P ne la fronte mi descrisse / col punton de la spada",
Pg 9,113), and afterwards, when Dante-pilgrim has passed by the next
guardian angel, he is so unaware of these letters or wounds that he does
not even realize, without being reminded by Vergil and then touching his
forehead with his hand, that the first of them has vanished: the only thing
he had realized himself was that climbing the mountain had suddenly become
easier for him, as if a 'weight' had been lifted off him (Pg 12,118ss). In
my opinion, writing something on ones forehead means to chose a place
particularly apt *not* to remind this person of what is written there!
Otfried
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