Jordan River

Description

In the Commedia the Jordan is mentioned in Purgatorio XVIII, where the verse «che vedesse Iordan le rede sue» alludes to the biblical tradition of the people of Israel led into the Promised Land. The authorized notes on canto II of the Inferno also propose an identification of the Jordan with the «fiumana» (stream) on which Dante finds himself carried at the beginning of his journey: it is a river that, unlike the Acheron, does not flow into the sea, and which in Scripture prevented the Jews from reaching the Promised Land, opening before them by divine intervention. This interpretation connects with the figure of the Exodus evoked by the desert and the shipwreck narrowly escaped. The identification nonetheless remains debated: other commentators read the «fiumana» as the stormy surge of human passions.