What It Is
The reader's little boat is the image with which the poem speaks to the reader and divides him in two. At the start of canto II, before any scene, Dante turns to whoever follows him in a small boat behind his ship and tells them to return to the shores they know, because on the high sea they may be lost. The water the poet takes has never been traversed, and three helps govern it: Minerva breathes, Apollo leads, and the nine Muses show him the Bears. The invitation goes only to the few who raised their necks early to the bread of angels, of which one lives without being sated. Whoever stays on the shore is not guilty of anything: they chose the boat. The image is one of navigation, and it comes from the prayer to Apollo in canto I, where the poet already described himself as one facing a greater matter. Later on, the little boat returns as memory and as limit.
Where It Appears
The warning opens canto II:
O voi che siete in piccioletta barca, / desiderosi d’ascoltar, seguiti / dietro al mio legno che cantando varca, / tornate a riveder li vostri liti: / non vi mettete in pelago, ché forse, / perdendo me, rimarreste smarriti.Whoever follows in a little boat should return to the shore they already know, because the high sea that opens from here on is another level of difficulty.
The three aids of the new sea are pagan, and the poet gives them with the office of a pilot:
L’acqua ch’io prendo già mai non si corse; / Minerva spira, e conducemi Appollo, / e nove Muse mi dimostran l’Orse, the water I take has never been run before; Minerva breathes, and Apollo guides me, and nine Muses show me the Bears.
The invitation to the few who raised their necks early:
Voialtri pochi che drizzaste il collo / per tempo al pan de li angeli, del quale / vivesi qui ma non sen vien satollo, you few who early raised your necks to the bread of angels, of which one lives here but does not come away sated.
In canto X the poet hands the book to the reader:
Or ti riman, lettor, sovra ’l tuo banco, / dietro pensando a ciò che si preliba, / s’esser vuoi lieto assai prima che stanco, now stay, reader, on your bench, chewing over what has barely been tasted, if you want to be glad long before you are weary.
In canto XXIII the poem recalls the warning and confesses that it must skip:
e così, figurando il paradiso, / convien saltar lo sacrato poema, / come chi trova suo cammin riciso., and so, figuring paradise, one must skip the sacred poem, like one who finds his path cut off.
In canto XXXIII the poet asks for a spark to leave to future people:
O somma luce che tanto ti levi / da’ concetti mortali, a la mia mente / ripresta un poco di quel che parevi, / e fa la lingua mia tanto possente, / ch’una favilla sol de la tua gloria / possa lasciare a la futura gente, O supreme light, which lifts itself so high above mortal conceptions, lend again to my mind a little of what you seemed, and make my tongue so powerful that it can leave to future people one spark alone of your glory.
What It Means
The reader's little boat divides readers by appetite, not by knowledge, and places the difficulty as part of the pact: Paradise is the canticle in which the poem warns the reader that they may not keep up. The boat also serves the poet, because it gives the limit of the one who writes: the sea is deep for the reader, and for the one who tells as well. The same gesture appears in canto XXIII, where the pen accepts skipping, and in XXXIII, where memory yields to excess.
The text sustains two readings of the warning. In the first, it is the courtesy of one who recognizes that not everyone wants the difficulty and lets them go. In the second, it is selection: the poet wants a reader who accepts getting lost, and the invitation to the few suggests that the work is not completed without that kind of reader. The poem does not choose between them.
Relationships
- Default themes: Language and narration, Knowledge and wisdom.
- Themes of the work: Language and narration, Knowledge and wisdom.
- Characters: Dante, Beatrice.
- Neighboring symbols: the three circles and the wheel, the close of the poem, and the ladder of Saturn.