Purgatorio
Dante Alighieri (Modern Library, 2003; trans. Anthony Esolen)

530 p. Third reading.
Posted 18 September 2006.

There are some who are under the misapprehension that Inferno is the only part of the Divine Comedy worth reading. This is a grave error. To read Inferno without proceeding to the other two panels is like reading only the first act of Hamlet, or viewing only the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Inferno is a great poem, and has its own peculiar merits, but it is not obviously superior to the others, and in the overall architecture of the Comedy it is only the opening act.

Some descriptions of Purgatory that survive from medieval Europe paint it as a suburb of Hell, emphasizing the pain and suffering of those being purified, but this is not Dante's vision. From the moment that he and Virgil emerge under the dawn sky on the shores of Purgatory, it is clear that we have passed out of the infernal kingdom. On the quiet shores, as Dante stoops to wash his face and binds a humble reed around his waist, the poetry is infused with a fresh clarity, leisurely spaciousness, and hope. Purgatory is another country.

The structure of Purgatory is a close inversion of the structure of Hell; it stands Hell on its head. It is a mountain of seven terraced circles, on each of which one of the seven deadly sins is purified. The souls on the mountain suffer, but they suffer in hope, and their pain is corrective, directed to their healing rather than their punishment. Few souls escape this life without being bent and twisted by their sin, and the pain of purgatory is simply that pain of being straightened again, the "sharp compassion of the healer's art", preparing the soul for its ascent to the vision of God.

On the lower slopes, Dante and Virgil meet those who, as it were, just squeaked in: the excommunicated, who died unreconciled with the Church; the indolent, who died before they could adequately repent their sins; those who suffered sudden and violent death, without opportunity for repentance; and, in the beautiful Valley of Princes, those statesmen who were too occupied with their God-ordained duty of goverance to tend to their spiritual health. All will, at the appropriate time, begin their ascent, but in the meantime Ante-Purgatory is a realm of rest, reunion, and the singing of songs. Throughout I was struck by the refreshed and renewed tone: souls greet one another with joy and surprise, embracing, happy to share their stories with Dante and with one another. More than once, Dante causes a sensation by the fact that he alone casts a shadow, but whereas in the Inferno his bodily presence was treated with suspicion, here it is an occasion of wonderment and praise of the goodness of the Creator, who gives good and unexpected graces to his children.

Soon Dante begins his ascent, passing through St. Peter's Gate. As the lower circles of Hell were reserved for those who sinned by aiming at evil, so on the three lowest terraces of Purgatory we find those who struggled with sins directly opposed to goodness: pride, envy, and wrath. The proud circle the mount bent double, carrying heavy stones upon their backs, an image of the burden of pride they insisted on carrying in life. The envious sit, propped against one another, with their eyes - the same eyes that coveted their neighbour's goods during life - sealed and sewn shut. And the wrathful walk a terrace filled with billowing smoke, an image of the anger that blinded their judgement.

One way in which Purgatorio differs from Inferno is in the amount of "solid instruction" that it contains. There are a number of miniature tutorials on various vexing questions: free will, love and freedom, the nature of the soul, embryology, the reflection of light, the water cycle. This is appropriate, for souls ascending toward God are also growing in their thirst for truth. Dante wonders out loud about how the souls whom he encounters, being dead, can have bodies at all. It's an important question for the whole Comedy, since everyone he meets seems to have a body. The answer he receives is worth remarking on. He follows Thomas Aquinas in saying that the soul is the form of the body; the human soul is the principle that organizes the body's matter into a human body. After death, then, when the body is absent, the soul continues this task, but uses the only matter ready at hand - that is, the air. Thus the sinners acquire temporary airy 'bodies', which nevertheless are visible and capable of sensation. Yet, as these bodies are expressions of the soul, they reflect visibly the nature of the soul's suffering. This accounts for why the bodies of the souls Dante sees in Hell and Purgatory seem so aptly to project their spiritual state.

On the fourth terrace, which marks the midpoint of the ascent, we encounter those whose love was simply deficient. They did not love bad things inordinately (as did those on the lower terraces), nor did they love good things inordinately (as did those on the higher terraces); they are the slothful. The sin of sloth, as English speakers are prone to forget or misunderstand, is not simple laziness or idleness, as though activity were a virtue in itself. The deadly sin of sloth is a spiritual sin; it is what Kierkegaard would later call "the despair of weakness", the despair of not daring to be what one is. Thomas Aquinas described it as a sadness experienced when confronted by the great gifts of God. It manifests itself as an uneasy restlessness, a sluggish indifference toward those things that summon the soul to goodness, a faint-heartedness in the pursuit of spiritual greatness, an irritability and rebellion against whatever tries to spur the soul out of complacency or self-forgetfulness. It's opposite is not industry, but magnanimity and joy. If we all struggle individually with individual sins, I believe that sloth -- or acedia, to grant it its Latin name -- is the besetting sin of our age. It is all around us.

The highest terraces are for the purification of those who loved good things, but whose love was not properly ordered. They loved good things, but did not love the best things the most. On the fifth terrace are the avaricious and the prodigal, those who loved money and the goods it can acquire. Since in life they loved material things, their purification consists in their lying prone, faces in the dust, until they learn to desire the things that are above. On the sixth terrace are the gluttons, those who loved food immoderately. They are hungry, and are made to pass under branches laden with forbidden fruit. On the seventh and final terrace are the lustful, whose ring is full of flame.

With each stage of his ascent, Dante finds that he grows lighter and finds his climb easier. Finally, he, Virgil, and Statius (a Roman poet who joined them on the fifth terrace, and whom Dante regards as a Christian) crest the top of the mountain, finding themselves in the Earthly Paradise, the Garden of Eden. Here they are greeted by Matelda, a noble and elegant woman who prepares souls for their final ascent into heaven. In this garden Dante beholds a complex, symbolic procession that can be understood as an allegory of the Church. From the center of the procession emerges Beatrice, the woman whose beauty was for Dante an intimation of the beauty of goodness, and at whose request Virgil was sent to bring him on his great journey. Dante bathes in the river Lethe, which causes forgetfulness of sin, and then in the river Eunoe, which renews the memory of good deeds, and prepares for his ascent. Suddenly Virgil has gone, having brought Dante as far as he himself may go. Beatrice will be Dante's guide through the Paradiso.

The spirit of the Purgatorio is entirely different from that of the Inferno. It is, as Anthony Esolen says in his excellent introduction, "the most amiable of poems". It is relaxed and refreshing, a great song of friendship and freedom. The characters whom Dante encounters are perhaps not as memorable as in the other poems, but this is to be expected. In Hell, we met many of the famous sinners of history, and in Paradise we shall meet many of the great saints, but Purgatory contains neither. Instead, Dante has filled it with figures from his own local and recent history, which means that, even more than with the other poems, to really appreciate it one needs a certain familiarity with Italian politics of the 14th century, which few of us have.

Purgatory is a realm of liturgy and song. It is remarkable how much music Dante hears as he wends his way up the hill. Someday I would like to make a recording of the songs he hears. On each of the terraces he hears one of the Beatitudes, and at various points on his journey the Te lucis ante terminum, Salve Regina, Gloria, Agnus Dei, and Miserere.

As with the Inferno, I enjoyed Anthony Esolen's translation very much. The book is padded with substantial appendices containing excerpts from Thomas Aquians, the Church Fathers, and medieval poetry. I'm looking forward to the finale.

[Dante pauses to teach some physics]
As in a mirror or a glassy pool
   the rays of a reflected beam of light
   leap as they have descended, by the rule
Of equal angles in the incidence
   and the reflection, from a line hung plumb -
   as physics shows us, and experience -
So a reflected radiance seemed to come
   striking from something on the road ahead,
   making my dazzled vision quick to flee.
            - 15.16-24

[Virgil's last words]
"The temporal and eternal fires, my son,
   you have now seen, and you have reached a part
   where I discern no further on my own.
I've led you here by strength of mind, and art;
   take your own pleasure for your leader now.
   You've left the steep and narrow ways behind.
Behold the sun that gleams upon your brow,
   behold the grass, the flowers, and the young trees
   which this land, of its own, brings forth to grow.
While we await the glad and lovely eyes
   whose weeping made me come to you, you may
   sit here or walk among them, as you please.
No longer wait for what I do or say.
   Your judgment now is free and whole and true;
   to fail to follow its will would be to stray.
Lord of yourself I crown and miter you."
            - 27.127-42

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