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

Unlike the birds in Inferno, the falcons in Purgatorio and Paradiso obey their
divine falconer, either as emissaries or pilgrim souls, and the cranes participate in divine
order. In contrast to the hawWdevils of Inferno, the goshawklangels that Dante
encounters in Canto VIII of Purgatorio do their job as they are bid, chasing away the
serpent in Antepurgatory. Dante, Sordello, and Virgil watch them in action:
10 non vidi, e per0 dicer non posso,
come mosser li astor celestiali;
ma vidi ben l'uno e l'altro mosso.
Sentendo fender I'aere a le verdi ali,
fuggi '1 serpente e li angeli dier volta,
suso a le poste rivolando iguali.
(Purgatorio VIII, 102- 108)
The goshawk was considered one of the most noble falcons and one of the largest, thus a
very appropriate bird for heavenly guardians. They also tend to hunt prey that is near the
ground or earthbound, so again it is an appropriate species to be chasing a serpent. Here
in Antepurgatory, there are goshawks that are trained by divine love to hunt for God,
unlike in Hell, where Geryon obeyed divine will only by force, and the devils attacked
their prey and each other contrary to the rules of civilized falconry.
The other two clear falconry references in Purgatorio relate to training the falcon
or hawk. They refer in both cases to people who are in the process of improving
themselves, being retrained to love God as their only goal. In Canto XIII, the situation of
the envious is akin to that of a technique used by falconers to keep their wild new birds
from being distracted. The envious have their eyes sewn up with wire, much like the
wild sparrowhawks who as part of their training have their eyelids seeled.
E come a li orbi non approda il sole,
cosi a l'ombre quivi ond'io parlo ora
luce del ciel di sC largir non vole: