«Ni te, Polipheme, timerem». Intertestualità e interpretazione nell’ultima egloga di Dante

In his bucolic exchange with Giovanni del Virgilio, Dante shows a great deal of ability in intertextuality: thanks to the passages he quotes from ancient Latin poets – especially Vergil and Ovid – he is able to reply gracefully to the rebukes made by the Bolognese master, who had urged him to write an epic poem in order to gain the poetic coronation in Bologna. A careful analysis of intertextuality in Dante’s eclogue leads to a better understanding of the character of Polyphemus, who holds back Dante to go to Bologna at Giovanni del Virgilio’s cave: perhaps, it is a brilliant and elaborate answer to Giovanni’s invitation, because the Bolognese master had filled his lines to Dante with the same words that Vergil used in his Bucolics and Aeneid to describe the mythological bloodthirsty monster.