Piche

Profile

In the first canto of Purgatorio, Dante invokes the Muses to assist him in his new journey; in particular, he addresses Calliope, "the greatest among them," that she may rise with her song (Purg. I 7-9). Immediately after, he recalls that, when the wretched Piche already felt the force of her verse, she touched the heavens with the sternness of Pieros (Purg. I 10-12). According to the Ovidian account recalled by critical notes, Calliope was the Muse who defeated the Pierides — the daughters of Pieros, also known as the Piche — in the celebrated singing challenge described in the Metamorphoses. Dante, mindful of that myth, entrusts to Calliope precisely the strength to sustain his poem in Purgatorio.