Invocation of the Muses
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O muse, o alto ingegno, or m’ aiutate; o mente che scrivesti ciò ch’ io vidi, qui si parrà la tua nobilitate.
O Muses, O lofty genius, help me now; O memory that set down what I saw, here your nobility shall be shown.
Like the classical epics, the poem pauses to call on the Muses and on his own high genius and memory to make him equal to the task.
Dante follows Virgil and Homer in stopping to invoke help before the great labor, but he doubles the classical gesture: alongside the <i>muse</i> he calls on his own <i>ingegno</i> and <i>mente</i>. The poem will be a partnership between inspiration and craft.
<i>Qui si parrà la tua nobilitate</i> — here your nobility will show itself — is spoken to memory as if to a knight before a test. What is about to be attempted is so large that even the faculty of remembering has to prove its worth.
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