Spain

Description

In Purgatorio XVIII, at verse 102, the name «Ispagna» occurs within the series of examples of solicitude that two souls declaim while running before the band of the slothful. The complete verse reads: «punse Marsilia e poi corse in Ispagna» ("he stung Marseille and then ran into Spain"), referring to the overwhelming force of Charlemagne's horse which, after striking Marseille, launches itself toward Spain. The entire cornice, as the notes to the canto clarify, is woven with swift and dense images — the nighttime throng of Thebans, the scythe-like stride of horses — aimed at filling the pilgrim's sight and hearing and at reawakening the spirit from its sluggishness, the virtue opposed to the sloth being expiated here.