What It Is
At the top of the mountain, in the Earthly Paradise, the stream that keeps Dante from going further comes from a single spring that opens into two beds, and each bed bears a name. The Lethe descends on one side with the virtue of taking away the memory of sin, and the Eunoe, on the other, gives back the memory of every good deed. The water of the second works only if the water of the first has been tasted before, and it is not born of a vein that restores vapor turned to ice, like the river that gains and loses force, but of a firm and certain spring, which takes back from the will of God as much as it pours out through the two open sides. Matelda explains to Dante how the water proceeds, then dips him in one and leads him to the other, at the request of Beatrice, who makes the purgation a process.
Where It Appears
The description of the spring is in Canto XXVIII of Purgatory, in the mouth of Matelda:
Da questa parte con virtù discende / che toglie altrui memoria del peccato; / da l’altra d’ogne ben fatto la rende. / Quinci Letè; così da l’altro lato / Eünoè si chiama, e non adopra / se quinci e quindi pria non è gustato, On this side it descends with a virtue that takes from one the memory of sin; on the other it gives back the memory of all good done. Here, Lethe; so on the other side it is called Eunoe, and it does not work unless it is first tasted from here and from there.
The Lethe appears earlier, in Canto XXVI of Purgatory, as the measure of Guinizelli's affection for Dante, and it already has its function there: it is what would wipe away a memory.
Tu lasci tal vestigio, / per quel ch’i’ odo, in me, e tanto chiaro, / che Letè nol può tòrre né far bigio, You leave such a trace in me, by what I hear, and so bright, that Lethe cannot take it away nor make it grey.
The immersion is in Canto XXXI of Purgatory, after the confession. Dante falls overcome, and Matelda pulls him to the river up to the throat and submerges him:
La bella donna ne le braccia aprissi; / abbracciommi la testa e mi sommerse / ove convenne ch’io l’acqua inghiottissi, The beautiful lady opened her arms; she embraced my head and submerged me where it was necessary that I swallow the water.
In Canto XXXIII of Purgatory Beatrice uses the Lethe against him: if he cannot remember having turned away from her, it is because he drank from the river that wipes away sin.
E se tu ricordar non te ne puoi», / sorridendo rispuose, «or ti rammenta / come bevesti di Letè ancoi; / e se dal fummo foco s’argomenta, / cotesta oblivïon chiaro conchiude / colpa ne la tua voglia altrove attenta, And if you cannot remember it, she answered, smiling, now recall how today you drank of Lethe; and if from smoke one infers fire, that forgetting clearly concludes the fault in your will attentive to something else.
The bath in the Eunoe closes the canticle, with Dante renewed like a new plant:
puro e disposto a salire a le stelle., pure and disposed to rise to the stars.
What It Means
The two waters give the form of a river to a theological idea: forgiveness has two movements, to forget evil and to remember good, and the second does not come without the first. The Lethe is the rest from sin, the Eunoe the rest of merit. The poem also shows the price of the first: the Lethe wipes away the memory of sin and, with it, the memory of having turned away from Beatrice, and it is necessary that she argue from the forgetting to the fault.
There are two readings of the point at which Beatrice makes the remedy into a test. One is the justice of one who collects with firm argument: the water that washes is also the sign that there was something to wash. The other is the irony of one who smiles as she says it, because the pilgrim has done what she herself planned without knowing it. Canto XXXIII states the effect of the Eunoe on Dante, who returns renewed, pure and disposed to rise, but does not sing of the drinking, and the poet confesses that the bridle of art does not let him go further.
Relationships
- Default themes: Redemption, Forgiveness, Guilt.
- Themes of the work: Redemption, Forgiveness.
- Characters: Matelda, Beatrice, Dante.
- Neighboring symbols: the wall of fire, the last passage before the garden, and the chariot, the griffin and the procession, the procession that reaches the riverbank.