The Achilles Simile in Purgatorio 9

The comparison between the pilgrim's disorientation and fear upon awaking at the threshold of Purgatory and the young Achilles' reaction as he awakes in unfamiliar Skyros intimates the pilgrim's continued attachment to the secular values of glory and honor, as well as his doubts about the success of his spiritual journey. This simile at the opening of Canto 9 and the narrative that surrounds it mark this point before the door of Purgatory as a crucial moment in the process of conversion, in which the pilgrim struggles at a deep level against the forward momentum of the journey. While most commentators and critics have focused only on the primary point of the comparison, there are compelling reasons for considering the wider effects of linking the two characters here. (1) First, the poet hints strongly that he is interested in describing more than mere disorientation, as he reminds the reader in the course of the comparison that Achilles' journey will not end in Skyros, as his mother had hoped, but rather with the Greek army on the plains before Troy: "... quando la madre da Chiron a Schiro/trafuggo lui dormendo in le sue braccia,/la onde poi li Greci dipartiro" (Purg. 9, 37-39, emphasis mine). (2) Second, the projection of Achilles' tragic future within the simile also recalls all the ambivalence of the pilgrim toward the figure of Ulysses, who, as the pilgrim hears in Inferno 26, was instrumental in Achilles' destruction, even as he led him to glory (Inf. 26, 61-63). Here Ulysses continues to figure in the pilgrim's imagination throughout much of the journey as a temptation to an experience that opposes that of the journey toward conversion. Third, Dante's redaction of the scene from Statius' Achilleid intensifies the emotion of the waking protagonist. Singleton suggests that the language of intense fear here echoes other points of crisis in the pilgrim's journey, such as the pilgrim's utter sense of loss before the horror of Lucifer's image (Singleton, 185). Given these aspects of the figure of Achilles, the timing of the comparison seems particularly peculiar and purposeful, as it occurs just after the pilgrim has received the grace to lift him to the threshold of Purgatory proper. Finally, the Achilles simile is tied to the complex of signs woven into the first part of Purgatorio 9, and is inextricably linked to the pilgrim's dream that precedes it. It is impossible to read the anxiety of the pilgrim without recalling the image of Ganymede snatched violently from his familiar surroundings. The comparison to Achilles here provokes questions about the pilgrim's susceptibility to the rhetorical power of Ulysses intimated in Inferno 26 and the temptation to value worldly glory over heavenly grace. Compared to other mythological figures evoked in the Commedia as negative exempla for the pilgrim, such as Phaethon, Achilles' direct connection to Ulysses points to the danger not only of obvious pride and presumption but also of the more subtle parts of one's character upon which a master rhetorician could work. If, as many commentators believe, Ulysses is a constant reminder for the pilgrim/poet of his potential for transgression, Achilles is a figure of the hero tempted, a hero who could not restrain himself. (3) In this specific passage, Dante's highly condensed account of the story of Statius' Achilles here reduces it to two essential movements: the movement away from danger and tragedy and a subsequent counter-movement toward it, Thetis' attempt to save her son by hiding him in Skyros and the Greeks taking him away from there. Dante's terse description of the counter-movement of the Greeks away from the island ("la onde poi ...") suggests the strong, nearly inevitable pull of Ulysses' manipulation of Achilles' will, as he thoroughly erases the moment of Achilles' initial resistance to the call to war. This double movement, the second of which "undoes" the first, has strong implications for the pilgrim. Although he is lifted by Lucia to the "salvific" steps of Purgatory, Dante suggests that, as with Achilles, this progress could be undone if temptation for worldly honor and the weakness of his will were to conspire against him. …