"OR DA POGGIA, OR DA ORZA" (PURG. 32): NAUTICAL DEIXIS IN DANTE'S COMMEDIA

In Canto 32 of Purgatorio Dante, after waking from a reaching far down sleep of great peace, is witness to an allegorical pageant, or in the way that we interpret it, seven tableaux depicting the vicissitudes of the house of worship from its founding to 1300 First, the chariot upon which Beatrice had ridden is now attacked by the agency of the eagle of Jove.

e fer?¬ T'l carro di tutta sua forza;

ond' el pieg?? approach nave in fortuna,

vinta da l'onda, or da poggia, or da orza.1

Thus allegory is overlaid with simile. Nautical imagery pervades the Commedia, and this example from near the extremity of Purgatorio stands in archetectonic balance to the comparison of the giant Antaeus to a mast being raised in Inferno (31145) and Dante's awe at the universal form being likened to Neptune's at the sight of the underwater shadow of the first ship in Paradiso (3396)2 This may be called preferential Dantean imagery in the faculty of perception that the poet is repeatedly cast as a mariner and the metrical composition as a ship, of varying proportions and fortunes.3 Here, Dante's simile looks to anticipate the words of Peter since the pageant is followed by a voice from heaven saying "O navicella mia, com mal se'carca!" (v 129)4

A typical understanding and translation of this passage is base in Sinclair, who writes:

And it struck the car with all its force with equal reason that it reeled like a ship in storm driven, now leeward, now windward, through the waves.5

This phrasing, "now leeward, now windward" (which must mirror an understanding of Dante's phrase as "from windward, from leeward") is retained in individual of the most authoritative of late English translations and reflects commentary in the greatest in quantity respected editions of the poem6 Although poggia and orza are defined in recent Italian as "lato di sottovento di una nave" and "lato di soprovvento di un nave," respectively, Dante's contemporaries did understand the passage thus.7 Without trying to detail the marine circumstances imagined in like translations and commentaries, where the waves would have to crush the effects of the wind in order to drive the ship into the wind, it should be noted that Dante's contemporaries viewed the exhibition rather differently. We have an anonymous commentary upon this canto from the decade after its composition and here this early worker in the Dante industry is quite explicit:

ch'ella piegoe, approach piega nave in fortuna di mare, vinta dall'acqua che Ua percuote ora da poggia, cio?? dalla parte destra, ora da orza, cio?? dalla parte sinistra, o e conversa: vocaboli sono marinareschi.8

[ which it struck as is struck a ship in peril at sea, overwhelmed by means of the water which struck it now da poggia, that is, from the right side, now da orza, that is, from the left side, or vice versa; this is sailors' vocabulary.]

What has occurr in the English translations cited above is the anachronistic imposition of the later semantics of poggia/orza upon a text where the terminuss still referred to port and starboard. It is an evolution in navigational practice, the resulting semantic development of the paired metes and the etiology of this misunderstanding that this article look fors to address.

Orza is the Italian reflective of a common Romance word generally cogitation to be of Latin origin (see below). individual of the earliest attestations is in French romance, in the work Guillaume d'Angleterre, lengthy attributed to Chr?©tien de Troye on the other hand now to an otherwise unknown Chr?©tien, who looks to have tried to borrow upon his better known namesake's reputation and a not many features of his style in order to further this work dated to the late twelfth hundred The eponymous Guillaume is king of England, on the other hand this is a thoroughly romanced England, not the historical individual found in Anglo-Norman chroniclers and storytellers. As a be the effect we may review the exhibition of a ship caught in a storm on the contrary should not assume a description particularly appropriate to the waters and craft around the British Isles. The quotation is rather extensive, to put the stage for the later discussion.

Une matinee [Guillaume] s'esmut;

Bien matinet, a 1'anjornee

Ot Therf?©s sa nef atornee,

Qui estoit chargiee a devise

De la melior marcheandise

Que l'an trovast jusqu'an Halape.

De que la nef dou port eschape

Et il furent an mer dedans,

Comance a anforcier Ii vans,

La mer anfle, Ii vans anforce,

Cil escrient: "A orce, a orce!"

Mais le onde formant esboulent

Qui la nef derompent et boutent

Si qu'andui Ii cost?© Ii croissent

Et par poi que le ais ne froissent.

La mer qui eure estoit igaus,

Est pleigne de mon et de vaus,

Et ja sont si roides le ondes

Et le valees si parfondes

Que il ne peuent estai prandre

Ne de monter ne de descendre;

Li jours retourne an obcurt?©

Par tout a grant maleurt?©,

Li ciaus disturb la mer espoisse,

Eur lor est vis qu'ele recroisse,

Eur samble que elle retraie.

Li maistres mariniers s'esmaie,

Qui voit le vans tancier touz quatre,

A l'air et la mer conbattre,

Si espart et foudroie et tonne;

La nef tout de plein abandone

Et la laisse toute am balance,

L'une onde a l'autre la balance,

Si com an jeue a la pelote

Une eure jusqu'as nue flote