SOURCE: “A Note on Purgatorio IX, 16-18,” Books Abroad, Vol. 39, 1965, pp. 74-80.

In the following essay, Hardie discusses the importance of variant wording concerning dreams in Canto IX, thereby illustrating the type of problems which stem from the corruption of Dante's text.

e che la mente nostra peregrina           più da la carne e men dai pensier presa,                     a le sue vision quasi è divina. 

These lines form part of Dante's introduction to the first of the three dreams on the Mount of Purgatory, which take place just before dawn and are therefore true dreams, on the principle borrowed from Horace, Satires 1. X. 32 [and found also in Moschus, Europa 2-5, and Philostratus, Vita Apoll. Tyan. 2,37] and quoted in Inferno XXVI, 7:

ma se presso al mattin del ver si sogna. 

The first dream is of an eagle with golden wings which swoops on Dante, as he dreams that he is like...