Mount Gilboa

Description

In Purgatorio XII 41 Dante places Mount Gilboa in a passage dedicated to the biblical example of the arid mountain: his text evokes the body of Saul fallen upon those mountains, echoing the formula "rain nor dew," which recalls David's lament in 2 Samuel 1: 21 ("neither dew nor rain descend upon you any more"). The notes on Canto XII explain that David's curse is considered fulfilled and interpreted as punishment for the arrogance of the mountains, guilty of having killed the elect of God; the same motif recurs in the Epistle to the Florentines (Ep. VI 11), where the peaks of Gilboa are pointed out as deprived of celestial dew because of pride. The reference is not a simple erudite ornament, but a rapid glimpse of punished pride, which presupposes in the reader a knowledge of the biblical text.