Apollo e Marsia nel proemio del Paradiso

(1) When Dante invokes Apollo saying “Entra nel petto mio, e spira tue | sì come quando Marsïa traesti | de la vagina de le membra sue” (Par. 1.19-21) he most probably understands Ovid’s model (Met. 6.384-5) as meaning that not only Marsyas, but Apollo too played a reed pipe during their contest: “spira tue” (“inspire”) literally means “breathe” and refers to Apollo “breathing into the reed pipe.” Other passages might have suggested to Dante that Apollo too played a reed during his contest with Marsyas; cf. Liv. 38.13, Plin. NH 5.106. A version which explicitly presents Apollo as playing the reed is attested at Agathias, Hist. 4.23.4, and according to Iacomo della Lana, author of the first commentary to the Paradiso (1324-8), both Marsyas and Apollo/Febo would have played a wind instrument in their contest. (2) The reference to Marsyas and Apollo at Par. 1.19-21 is meant to contrast Dante’s humility in his asking God for help with the foolish arrogance of those who presume of singing of sublime matters trusting entirely in their human capacities. This is the correct interpretation of the terzina. There is also another widespread interpretation, which goes back ultimately to an observation of S. T. Coleridge, reported with approval by J. S. Carroll (1907): Marsyas would be a “figura Dantis,” representing the liberation from the body by means of divine inspiration; so e.g. E. Wind, S. Pasquazi, K. Brownlee, P. S. Hawkins, P. Rigo, J. Levenstein, R. Hollander, N. Fosca, among many others. In fact, this is either an overinterpretation, or a mere misunderstanding of Dante’s text.