Dissertation on Birds of Prey and the Sport - the Falconry Heritage ...

esponsibility and order, is, however, used to describe the lustful both in Inferno, and
in Purgatorio XXVI."
E come li stornei ne portan l'ali
nel freddo tempo a schiera larga e piena,
cosi quel fiato li spiriti mali
di qua, di la, di giu, di su li mena;
nulla speranza li conforta mai,
non che di posa, ma di minor pena.
E come i gru van cantando lor lai,
faccendo in aere di se lunga riga,
cosi vidi venir, traendo guai,
ombre portate dalla detta briga: [...I.
(Inferno V, 40-9)
The duality possible in the nature of cranes is reflected in the personages that
are compared to them-people who ought to have been of exemplary moral character
because of their status as leaders in life but were overcome and damned by their lust.
Those who are mentioned by name in this group are Semiramis, Dido, Cleopatra,
Helen, Achilles, Paris, and Tristan-all figures who met tragic deaths because of their
licentiousness. These souls, important figures of their times, leaders, in fact, caused
because of their lustful habits the downfall of the socio-political order in which they
lived: Cleopatra's dalliance caused the death of Antony, leader of one-third of the
known world, Tristan and Yseult caused strife in the royal household of Cornwall,
Helen and Paris started a ten-year war that caused the fall of Troy. While they should
have been models of exemplary behavior, their leadership promoted sin and social
chaos instead.
'O Holbrook remarks this as well, 252.
" Alongside this favorable view of cranes is a tradition that describes them as being, in fact, very lustful
birds. LIOttimo describes the cranes in Inferno with the comment, "Questi uccelli [...I sono molto
lussuriosi," elaborating further, "e nota che generalmente ogni uccello e lussurioso; e per0 la lor0 came
accende lo fuoco della lussuria e della libidine." La Divina Commedia nella jgurazione artistica e nel
secolare commento, ed. G. Biagi et al., 3 Vols. (Torino: UTET, 1924, 1931, 1939). Vol. 1, 147.