Dante's verses: The breasts of the Madonna

And how a child

stretches out its arms to its mother, after breastfeeding,

and makes its love so clearly visible;

E come fantolin che 'nver' la mamma?

tende le braccia, poi che 'l latte prese'?

per l'animo che 'nfin di fuor s'infiamma;

(Paradiso XXIII, 121–123, translated by Christine Ott)

The experiences that the wanderer Dante has in Paradise are abstract, incomprehensible, inexpressible. Nevertheless, or perhaps precisely because of this, Dante surprises us with a language of closeness, of simplicity. “La mamma” shouldn't even overwhelm those whose knowledge of Italian is only sufficient for the much-vaunted pizza order. Not mother is there, but "mamma", rhyming with "infiamma" (inflamed). After having drunk from the breast, the child stretches out his arms to the mother, and so the love that moves his mind is also visible to the outside world.

A child inflamed in love for mom's breast may invoke the psychoanalytic pairing of food and eroticism in the 21st century. In fact, breasts appear three times in Paradiso XXIII. And three times the song stages a nourishing relationship between mother and child: Beatrice is like a mother bird who wants to nourish her young (Dante), the muses refresh the poets with their milk, the blessed ones staying in paradise stretch their bodies of flame towards the Mother of God, like a child extends his arms towards the mother (breast). But it's not just about love, but about word power and knowledge, in other words: spiritual nourishment.

After all, the Church Fathers already described the literal level of meaning in the Bible as milk food that can also be given to less experienced readers without hesitation. The legend of Maria lactans has also been handed down, according to which Maria feeds the saints privileged by her with her own milk - in other words: provides them with mystical knowledge and extraordinary rhetoric.

Later, in Paradiso XXX, he made it clear that Dante sees himself as one of these privileged people. Here he compares his own thirst for knowledge with that of a child who pounces on the mother's breast. An incredibly self-confident comparison when you realize that those metaphorical breasts are those of Our Lady. The author of the Commedia is not exactly modest in other places either; especially not when it comes to your own poetry.

But it is also a humble comparison, because the wanderer is helpless and speechless here like a small child. It seems that the divine vision that Dante experiences at the end of Paradiso is only possible at the cost of cognitive and linguistic regression. The poet falls back into childlike babbling ("mamma"), the wanderer into childlike greed. This greed is unconditional love and total surrender, because survival depends on it. The barely comprehensible - the vision of Christ in Paradiso XXIII, the stream of light in Paradiso XXX - is compared by Dante with an experience that each of us (whether breast or bottle) has had.

In Italy, people are currently arguing about whether one should read Dante up-to-date and make him a contemporary.

The custodians of tradition plead that the author of the commedia should not be touched in his historical distance.

Dante wouldn't have wanted that.

To paraphrase Lino Pertile, he wanted to be a popular writer.

Someone who also says “merda” - or “mamma”.

And one that everyone can understand.

That is why he chose the vernacular for his comedy.

When his admirer Giovanni del Virgilio accused him of throwing pearls at pigs, Dante replied in two Latin eclogues.

It speaks of sheep and again of milk - and bread.

But that's another story to be told another time.

Christine Ott

teaches literary studies in Frankfurt am Main.

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