Note 199 — PART II THE DIVINE COMEDY COMPARED WITH OTHER MOSLEM LEGENDS ON THE AFTER-LIFE

Before leaving the circle in which Dante finds Brunetto, Virgil explains to him the hydrography of hell, the four rivers of which have their common source in the island of Crete. On Mt. Ida stands a monument, in the form of a statue of a Great Old Man, composed of gold, silver, brass, iron and clay; in every part, except the gold, there is a fissure from which drop tears, which flowing downhill form the rivers (Inf. XIV, 94 et seq.). Whatever be the esoteric meaning of Dante’s allegory and however evident the analogy with the statue of Daniel is, it is of interest to note that tales dealing with the common source of the four rivers of paradise were very popular in Islam. According to these tales, the Nile, Euphrates, Jihun and Sihun spring from a monument in the form of a dome, made of gold or emerald, standing on a mountain and having four mouths or fissures. The obscure origin of the sources of the Nile gave rise to similar legends, which describe its waters as flowing from the mouths of eighty-five statues of bronze, or else from a mountain on which stands the figure of an old man, the mythical Khidr. Cf. Badai az-Zohur, 21-23.