Dante's Inferno: A Reading and Commentary
Dante’s Purgatorio: Reading and Commentary
“Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between them; there is no third.”
–T.S. Eliot
PART 5
Let us begin a discussion of the Purgatorio by looking at Dante’s problem when he sat down to write the poem. It is essentially assumed that Dante wrote these works in order. We have the commentary of some friends that gives this indication. The Divine Comedy seems to have been written from beginning to end, and the poet finished it shortly before his death. Obviously this makes sense, since, in the work, Dante is the principal character; he has placed himself inside his own work and the work partially reconstructs his own spiritual journey. Thus Dante the poet writes this from beginning to end, showing the progress of Dante the pilgrim.
As the Purgatorio begins, the pilgrim has made his way out of the pits of Hell. At the end of the Inferno, Dante emerges to see the stars. Each of the three parts of the poem ends with the word “stars.” In a sense, then, we continue to look upward at the end of each part. There is a sense of continual upward motion, even at the top of the Paradiso.
In writing the Inferno, Dante had many things to feed his imagination. The first was a theological tradition which he uses often, ideas handed down over time about the nature of Hell. Thus he depicts Hell as a place of great suffering, a lake of fire, a place where damned souls are separated from the love of God. These pictures or images of Hell were handed down as tradition. Dante also populated his imagined Inferno with the damned souls, souls of legend or history or his time, souls familiar to him and his readers. And, of course, he also used classical mythology to further populate the place by adding Minos, the centaurs, etc.
When coming to the Purgatorio, however, Dante has a literary problem. Purgatory was a long-established idea in the history of the Church but without the same tradition of accompanying imagery concerning its nature. Obviously we still have suffering souls, but how are they suffering in a different way? What Dante did not have was the rich traditional framework of images that was available for him when he created his vision of Hell.
So while, at times, the Inferno might seem like an extraordinary work of the imagination—and it is—the Purgatorio is a step upwards in terms of imagining as Dante had to create the place almost completely out of his own imagination. The pilgrim was about to make a journey to a real place which the poet had to make real. It could not simply be a theological abstraction. It had to be a place the pilgrim and Virgil could visit. Due to the lack of rich precedents in pictures here, we have from the poet a created place very different from what he created in the Inferno.
What does Dante do? For starters, there is a sense in which Purgatory repeats, but reverses, Hell. If Hell is basically a hollow, inverted cone of nine concentric circles imagined as a pit in the earth, then its opposite would be a mountain. Hell, in a way, has been an inverted city; there are constant references to this in the Inferno. The impression is similar to a mock fortified city. Remember the City of Dis with the furies on the wall, where Virgil is frightened to go further until an angel comes and opens the doors. The city, however, is going downward; it is not a real city since it lacks order. There is no sense of souls living together in harmony, working for each other’s good. It is a place of noise, stink, and hellish suffering.
The Purgatorio, however, includes a genuinely fortified city. So now we have two images in the newly imagined Purgatory: a mountain and a city. Indeed, the city seems impermeable; it is not an easy city to enter. In fact, when Virgil and Dante actually enter Purgatory and begin to ascend the mountain, an angel is guarding the door (paralleling the Furies who guard Dis in the Inferno). They have to climb three steps: one white, one black, and one red. Then the angel allows them to enter and begin their climb up the mountain. The vision presents the angel as strictly monitoring who is allowed in. There are many souls in the ante-room, the “waiting room” of Purgatory before the actual entrance, waiting for their time to begin their climb.
So the image of Purgatory is like a medieval fortified city. Think of an Italian hill-town to which no one can ascend unless allowed by the guards above. Some of these cities are virtually impregnable, and so is Purgatory.
Purgatory is also remote. We have had glimpses of it twice in the Inferno. In Canto 1 of the Inferno, Dante finds himself in a dark wood next to a mountain. He thus gets a glimpse of Purgatory although he cannot yet climb the mountain. His soul is not yet prepared; he must go down to go up. In the Inferno itself, we get another glimpse. In Canto 26, Ulysses, who is going about in a moving flame with Diomed, says that when he sailed to the ends of the earth, going past the boundaries set by God for human knowledge, he caught a glimpse of a mountain far away in the sea. Thus, he caught a glimpse of Purgatory, a glimpse of a vision he was not allowed to pursue.
Thus we also learn it is not just a mountain, but it is also an island. Dante adds a few details: this island with the mountain is supposed to be in the Southern Hemisphere. He claims, in the Purgatorio, that it is at the exact opposite position on the globe from Jerusalem. Thus, if you went to Jerusalem and dug straight down, eventually you would come to Mount Purgatory. He also claims that the mountain was created when Satan fell. The pit of Hell was created by Satan’s fall. As Satan fell from Heaven, Hell was created by his momentous fall. The image is that the fallen angel has not moved since. Purgatory is then created from the displaced earth that resulted from the creation of Hell. This is wonderfully imaginative. This is the poetic imagination at work, giving us a vision of the unity of these places, connecting them as part of a Divine Plan.
The mountain is thus conical. Mount Purgatory also seems to extend partially beyond the realm of human nature. It is a mountain on an island in the Southern Hemisphere, but once we climb that mountain, a physical representation of a spiritual state, we find the earthly paradise on top.
So the earthly paradise still exists. Adam and Eve may have been cast out and those angels put out to guard so that they could not re-enter, but the place was not destroyed. It is still there. Dante the pilgrim, who, by making the climb up Mount Purgatory, will purge his soul of all the sins which beset all humanity, finally arrives at the state of perfect grace necessary to enter Paradise. When he enters the earthly paradise, he gets a glimpse of the Garden of Eden and describes it to us. Not surprisingly for Dante, an Italian, the earthly paradise is very much like part of Italy. He describes it as a pine forest that existed north of Ravenna, where he finally came to rest. (He was buried in Ravenna, where his body remains today.) This was thought to be one of the most beautiful places on earth. Those who thus wanted to see Dante’s vision of the earthly paradise could visit it until the Second World War, when American bombers took it out. It is now barren land. We can no longer visit the site. The description remains.
Eden is thus at the top of the mountain. And, in fact, when he gets to the earthly paradise, Dante changes guides. Virgil leaves him, and we meet Beatrice.
But there is one more reason for the image of the mountain. It makes sense in the language of the Scriptures. Think of Psalm 23: “Come, let us climb the mountain of the Lord.” This is how great literature proceeds from those educated in the Catholic Faith, knowing Scripture and the richness of our tradition.
So Purgatory is a mountain and Dante climbs it. But in order to climb it, he must fight the force of gravity trying to pull him down, a simple physical fact. Climbing any mountain is always an effort because of the force of gravity. As the soul is trying to go upward, what is the equivalent of gravity in the spiritual state? Of course it is sin. As one is struggling to go up the mountain, one thus has to be freed from sin. One must overcome the “gravity” of human sin and error that pulls one back down. But there is a beautiful countervailing attraction on Mount Purgatory: God’s love. God’s love helps to pull one up the mountain.
There is a moment early on when the mountain is being described to the pilgrim and Virgil. They are about to ascend the mountain and are told there is no other mountain like it in the world. What makes it unique is that the most difficult climb is at the bottom; once they approach the peak, it will get much easier. And at the very summit, where most mountains are usually most difficult to climb, this mountain is easiest. So, the ascent of Mount Purgatory is presented as the precise opposite circumstance of climbing a regular mountain. This is a delightful depiction and a glorious idea.
These few observations are only the briefest of introductory notes in an attempt to provide some structure to this remarkable work. One could easily spend a lifetime studying this one section of the poem; the Purgatorio is endlessly fascinating. Here are a few notes on this rich and beautiful poem.
In the beginning, there is a vision of transition from the horrors of Hell to the new place of hope:
For better waters, now, the little bark
of my poetic powers hoists its sails,
and leaves behind that cruelest of the seas.
And I shall sing about that second realm
where man’s soul goes to purify itself
and become worthy to ascend to Heaven.
Here let death’s poetry arise to life!
Notice how, even in these first few lines, we find quite the opposite of what we just experienced in Hell. Remember that it was only in the first few circles that there was much motion in Hell. Think of the souls of the lustful who flew like birds or the souls in the river of blood who bubbled along as the stream moved. But as we sank lower and lower, there was less and less motion. When we finally saw Satan, there was only the mechanical motion of the wings and the mouth.
As we begin Purgatory, there is motion in the very imagery: the ship hoisting its sails, moving across the water, the ascent to Heaven, and death’s poetry rising to life. So Purgatory is a place of motion and movement. The pilgrim, who was unsure and uncertain at the beginning of the Inferno, now knows exactly what his verse must do: it must ascend to life.
As we begin the movement upward, as we come into Purgatory, art itself becomes more important. There are certain things which define the Purgatorio. One is the notion of movement: these souls are in motion as opposed to the frozen souls in Hell. The distance between the damned souls and the animating force of the universe is so great that the damned souls are paralyzed. But the souls of those in Purgatory are constantly moving.
There is one peculiarity: the souls may only move when the sun shines. As soon as night comes, they are motionless. At that point, under cover of darkness, they may descend but they can no longer go higher. The sun is the vision of the animating force, the light of God, which allows the souls to move.
We have constant movement, motion, and all the souls in Purgatory are pilgrims. Dante joins countless others, all of whom climb together in the sunlight. In darkness, they may descend again; free will exists in Purgatory.
Let me give you the basic design of Purgatory. It is divided into three parts as are so many things in the larger poem. First there is the ante-Purgatory, the waiting room. There are many souls here, souls who will one day begin their climb though they cannot do so yet.
Even in the ante-Purgatory, there is a division. The first section is for excommunicates. They must wait out thirty times the length of their life before they can begin climbing because they died without the official sanction of the Church. Beyond that, there are the late repentants. These are the souls who waited until the last minute to repent. They are also divided into three categories: the unshriven, the indolent or lazy, and the negligent. And finally, at the edge of the cliff, at the separation from the ante-Purgatory, we have the door which we go through to start ascending the mountain.
The second division is the side of the mountain itself, the seven concentric terraces on the mountain which represent the seven deadly sins. As we climb from terrace to terrace, one of the seven deadly sins must be removed before a pilgrim may progress. As Dante begins his climb, an angel comes and inscribes seven P ’s on his forehead. Each one stands for peccata, sin, in reference to the seven deadly sins. Each time Dante the pilgrim gets through one of the terraces, one of the P’’s vanishes from his forehead, and a voice echoes one of the Beatitudes with great joy, a Beatitude that connects with the sin. Then we can continue climbing. Think of it in this way: if the human soul is a beautiful masterpiece created by God, time in the world, error, and sin have covered this masterpiece with layers of grime and filth. At each one of the terraces, the painting is partially cleaned. One layer of filth and grime is taken off as every P is removed. Layer by layer this process continues until the soul shines at the top with the beauty it was meant to possess and, indeed, possessed at baptism.
(It is interesting to note that Dante has saved the seven deadly sins for Purgatory. He designed Hell differently. The seven deadly sins were there but arranged in a different order.)
Finally, having survived the climb and having been thoroughly cleansed, we go through a wall of fire and arrive at Eden, the earthly paradise, the third part of the purgatorial design. But there is another tripartite division in the plan: the ante-Purgatory, the seven terraces, and beyond the wall of fire, Eden. What do we have here? Basically, nine parts: one waiting room, seven terraces, and one earthly paradise. Just as we had nine concentric circles in Hell and just as we will have nine heavenly spheres in the Paradiso, so we have the number nine here in Purgatory. Again: nine is three times three, the number three being central to the enormous design of the whole work.
As we cannot closely examine the entire work, let us focus on one moment in the ante-Purgatory and discuss its design to help understand the design of the whole. Then we will move forward to Cantos 16-18 which are the center, not just of the Purgatorio, but of the whole Divine Comedy. In these magnificent cantos Dante gives us a great discussion about the nature of love, central to the whole work. And then, finally, we will move forward to look at the climactic meeting with Beatrice in Eden as Dante re-encounters the perfect love of his life. At that moment, his guide through the afterlife changes from Virgil to Beatrice.
If we look at the end of Canto 5 in the Purgatorio, we get some insight into how to read the entire work. Starting at line 85, we are reading about the indolent, those who waited until the last minute to repent. These are lazy souls. We have already met one earlier in the canto, but at line 85 another soul begins to speak:
Another soul said: “Oh, may the desire that
draws you up the mountain be fulfilled;
and you, please help me satisfy my own.
I am Buonconte, once from Montefeltro;
no one, not even Giovanna, cares for me,
and so, I walk ashamed among these souls.”
I said: “What violence—or was it chance?–
swept you so far away from Campaldin
that no one ever found your burial place?”
We see that Dante knows this soul, knows this man. Dante asks Buonconte what happened to him at the moment of his death, for no one ever found where he was buried. The pilgrim is looking for information. The soul replies:
He said: “Below the Casentino flows
the river Archiano, which arises
above the convent in the Apennines.
Beyond it takes a different name, and there
I made my way, my throat an open wound,
fleeing on foot, and bloodying the plain.
There I went blind. I could no longer speak,
but as I died, I murmured Mary’s name,
and there I fell and left my empty flesh.
So Buonconte was in a battle, had his throat cut, and stumbles away from the battle as he slowly bleeds to death, his lifeblood flowing from his throat. He loses consciousness but at the last instant, right before he dies, he calls on the Blessed Mother.
Now hear the truth. Tell it to living men:
God’s angel took me up, and Hell’s fiend cried:
‘O you from Heaven, why steal what is mine?
You may be getting his immortal part–
and won it for a measly tear, at that,
but for his body I have other plans!’
You know how vapor gathers in the air,
then turns to water when it has returned
to where the cold condenses it as rain.
To that ill will, intent on evilness,
he joined intelligence and, by that power,
within his nature, stirred up mist and wind,
until the valley, by the end of day,
from Pratomagno to the mountain chain,
was fogbound. With dense clouds he charged the sky:
the saturated air turned into rain;
water poured down, and what the sodden ground rejected filled and overflowed the
deepest gullies, whose spilling waters came to join and form great torrents rushing violently,
relentlessly, to reach the royal stream.
Close to its mouth the raging Archiano
discovered my cold body—sweeping it
into the Arno, loosening the cross
I’d made upon my breast in final pain;
it dragged me to its banks, along its bed,
then swathed me in the shroud of all its spoils.”
They still get floods like this in northern Italy from time to time. They are horrifying. The demon created this storm so that the body would be swept far from its home, never to be found. So we have here a battle over an individual soul. The angel wins and takes the soul to Purgatory while the demon takes out his anger on the body. His body is never found. In this scene in Canto 5, Dante tells the reader what happened to the soul. Curiously, in the Inferno we have met the father, Guido de Montefeltro. We get a parallel case where a moment in the Purgatorio reflects back to a moment in the Inferno. Guido showed up in the same canto as Ulysses and Diomed and appeared as a flickering flame. Dante encountered him and the voice speaks out of the fire to Dante:
“If I thought that I were speaking to a soul
who someday might return to the world
most certainly this flame would cease to flicker;
but since no one, if I have heard the truth,
ever returns alive from this deep pit,
with no fear of dishonor I answer you...”
The damned soul speaks openly to Dante as he thinks the pilgrim will never go back and report what was said. But, of course, the story is recorded and we discover his secret. Guido continues:
“I was a man of arms and then a friar,
believing with the cord to make amends;
and surely my belief would have come true
were it not for that High Priest (his soul be damned!)
who put me back among my early sins;
I want to tell you why and how it happened.”
So he was also a warrior who turned to religion. The High Priest is a reference to Pope Boniface VIII.
“While I still had the form of the bones and flesh
my mother gave me, all my actions were
not those of a lion, but those of a fox;
the wiles and covert paths, I knew them all,
and so employed my art that rumor of me
spread to the farthest limits of the earth.”
He was thus well-known for his wiliness. Skipping ahead, we learn that he was called by Pope Boniface:
“His lofty papal seat, his sacred vows,
were no concern to him, nor was the cord
I wore (that once made those it girded leaner).
As Constantine once had Silvestro brought
from Mount Soracte to cure his leprosy,
so this one sought me out as his physician
to cure his burning fever caused by pride.
He asked me to advise him. I was silent,
for his words were drunken. Then he spoke again:
‘Fear not, I tell you: the sin you will commit,
it is forgiven. Now you will teach me how
I can level Palestrina to the ground.’
We do not get the specifics of the sin, but the Pope is going to have Guido move against a particular Italian family whom he wants to strike. The friar is basically being asked to be a warrior again. Palestrina was the family home of the Colonnas.
“‘Mine is the power, as you cannot deny,
to lock and unlock Heaven. Two keys I have,
those keys my predecessor did not cherish.’
And when his weighty arguments had forced me
to the point that silence seemed the poorer choice,
I said: ‘Father, since you grant me absolution
for the sin I find I must fall into now:
ample promise with a scant fulfillment
will bring you triumph on your lofty throne.’
Saint Francis came to get me when I died,
but one of the black Cherubim cried out:
‘Don’t touch him, don’t cheat me of what is mine!
He must come down to join my other servants
for the false counsel he gave. From then to now
I have been ready at his hair, because
one cannot be absolved unless repentant,
nor can one both repent and will a thing,
at once—the one is canceled by the other!’
O wretched me! How I shook when he took me,
saying: ‘Perhaps you never stopped to think
that I might be somewhat of a logician!’”
Compare the two scenes of father and son. The one appeared to the world as a friar, a holy man, who did one nasty deed for the Pope and convinced himself by false logic he was absolved ahead of time, absolved of a sin before he committed it; thus, he never repented. So at the moment of his death we have a battle between St. Francis and a demon, with the demon winning. On the other hand, his son, a soldier who kept away from the Faith, repented at the last moment, calling on Mary, shedding a tear, a sign of remorse, and making a cross. Another battle for the soul ensues with God’s angel taking him to the ante-Purgatory where he must wait for an extended time before he begins his journey up the mountain. These are magnificent scenes. We have these parallel moments where scenes in one part of the work comment and reflect on scenes in another part.
Lest you think I am making this up, let us go back to Canto 5 of the Inferno. This is where Dante encounters Francesca da Rimini. She speaks from line 88 until 107 and then speaks again from 121 to 138. This means Francesca speaks more than almost any other soul encountered by the pilgrim anywhere. One reason she does so is because she is seeking to win over the pilgrim—and it works. Dante is so overcome by false sorrow for this damned soul that he faints. Let us look at one tercet where she discusses where she was born:
“The place where I was born lies on the shore
where the river Po with its attendant streams
descends to seek its final resting place.”
Now let us look at Canto 5 of the Purgatorio. Right after Buonconte of Montefeltro finishes speaking, without introduction we suddenly hear another voice:
“Oh, please, when you are in the world again
and are quite rested from your journey here,”
a third soul, following on the second, said,
“Oh, please, remember me! I am called Pia.
Siena gave me life, Maremma death,
as he knows who began it when he put
his gem upon my finger, pledging faith.”
She is there with those who repented late; the soft voice comes from another female soul who speaks to the pilgrim. Compare this gentle, brief utterance with that of Francesca, who goes on at length when she talks. Notice the difference even in the introduction of the two. In Canto 5 of the Inferno, Francesca greets Dante by saying, “O living creature, gracious and so kind, / who makes his way here through this dingy air / to visit us who stained the world with blood.” In Canto 5 of the Purgatorio, La Pia (as she is known) simply says “Oh, please...” Modesty, humility, and meekness shine through. She is barely willing to interrupt the pilgrim on his journey.
Further, Francesa says, “If we could claim as friend the King of Kings, / we would beseech Him that He grant you peace, / you who show pity for our atrocious plight.” There is a note of selfishness in the words. Compare it to Pia: she is asking for prayers for her soul. The souls in Purgatory need the prayers of those still living. Notice even the concern for Dante’s rest: she asks him to wait until he is rested. All the way through Purgatory, souls call upon Dante to tell people still living to pray for them. These calls are genuine and humble, and their constant appeal reinforces the fact that our prayers can help the souls in Purgatory.
Compare even their references to their places of birth. Pia’s simple statement “Siena gave me life” contrasts the long tercet in which Francesca speaks proudly of her birthplace. Even in Hell, Francesca is still proud. The differences are staggering. Note also the mysterious conclusion to Pia’s words. With Francesca, we get the whole long story of her life, her love for Paolo, her death. With Pia, we get a short reference to her husband. Somehow her husband pledged faith which was obviously broken. Somehow her husband betrayed her. But at this point, these past events no longer matter—she is only concerned with her soul. The difference between the two is obvious. We understand why one is in Purgatory on her way to Paradise and why the other is in Hell for eternity.?
(To be continued.)
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