The Divine Comedy

  The lesson on Love distinguishes natural, instinctive love from the intellectual love peculiar to man, and explains how the latter can err. The most ingenious feat, however, is the explanation of how the infliction of wrong on one’s neighbor, as it was spoken of in the Inferno, is really the pursuit of what appears to the distorted vision as a good. The discussion thus ends in a definition of the Capital Sins or Vices.

  The third great lesson (XVIII) was directed against Christianity’s most dangerous domestic foes at the time, the Epicureans. Readers of the Inferno will remember how Epicurus is dealt a much harsher fate than the other Greek philosophers, and placed in the burning tombs of Canto X instead of in the pleasant, though hopeless, serenity of Limbo. An incredibly large proportion of Dante’s townsmen shared this materialist heresy which denied the immortality of the soul and man’s responsibility for his acts. The lesson is probably the most difficult in the whole Comedy. Having made the point that attraction toward a pleasurable stimulus is not necessarily a good, according to Epicurus, but merely a natural reaction, Dante must justify the concept of man’s being held responsible for simply following a natural impulse. To accomplish this, the principle of the Substantial Form must be explained, together with the concept of Pure Act versus Potentiality. To have done all this concisely, clearly, and with poetry intact is one of Dante’s greater achievements.

  The last lesson of this general type is on human reproduction and the creation of the individual soul. It is introduced ingeniously by Dante’s supposed curiosity as to how incorporeal souls could still reflect so vividly and painfully the effects of tantalized hunger and thirst as are seen among the Gluttonous. From this starting point, and with the ostensible purpose of describing how, after death, memory, intellect, and will, stronger than before, impress on the surrounding air a fictive body with senses operative, Dante launches what is really a refutation of the other important heretical group of the day, the Averroists. Comparable to the Epicureans in numbers and influence, they shared with them a nonbelief in the immortality of the soul as an individual entity . They differed from them, however, in that the basis of their belief was what we might call today “scientific” rather than philosophical. The founder of the sect was a famed Arabian scholar who died about 1200, traditionally called Averroës, but known increasingly today as Ibn-Roschd. Physician as well as philosopher, he denied the existence of a conscious soul because he could find no organ or place for it in the body. His solution (simplified) to the obvious fact of man’s intellectual ability posited a universal intellect, with part of which the soul was endowed, and to which each share returned at death. For decades, Christendom floundered in refuting him, till Aquinas accomplished it with the argument of self-consciousness or awareness used by Dante (XXV, 67-75), who himself has often been accused of Averroism. In this canto, then, Dante has given the best current explanation of human generation, and has established the unity of the soul, the survival of its individuality, and its capacity to suffer the sort of punishment calculated to impress at least his contemporary readers.

  It should be noted, in this connection, that Virgil no longer enjoys the position he had in the Inferno, where he appeared as the quasi-omniscient, unique purveyor of wisdom. This was fitting in such a predominantly pre-Christian realm, peopled almost exclusively by souls who had lost il bene dell’ intelletto, and where Virgil is the rescuer of one who had almost suffered that fate. As the poets emerge into the dawn light of the Purgatorio, the change is immediate and striking. The confident guide becomes another pilgrim; wise and experienced, however, he serves Dante and his readers as an example of the disciplined mind at work deducing the rules of this Christian territory. So, although Dante has him deliver the great central lectures on Love, the earlier one on Free Will versus Predestination is given (with characteristic irascibility) by one Marco Lombardo, whom we never see because of the dense smoke on the ledge of Anger. The last, in Canto XXV, Virgil graciously entrusts to Statius, a Latin poet a generation and more later than Virgil. Presented by Dante as the older poet’s ardent admirer, and a “crypto-Christian” through him, Statius represents a poet of the ancient, pagan world redeemed by the coming of Christ; the union of Empire with Christianity, of Cardinal Virtues with Theological Virtues. He is, thus, the obverse of Dante and his goal: the union of Christianity with the revived Empire, and of the Theological Virtues with the Cardinal Virtues to be restored under it. Artistically, he contributes a great new dramatic interest at a point where it is most welcome.

  Quite apart from inevitable limitations of space, I have deliberately refrained from commenting on the poetry, the style, and (so far as possible) the unfolding story. I feel that everyone is entitled to make his own private initial approach to the intimate author-reader relationship. Happily, in the Purgatorio as in the preceding cántica, Mr. Ciardi’s perceptive and sensitive translation makes that relationship more accessible than has hitherto been possible without a good command of the original Italian.

  —ARCHIBALD T. MACALLISTER

  DIAGRAM OF PURGATORY

  Canto I

  ANTE-PURGATORY:

  THE SHORE OF THE ISLAND

  Cato of Utica

  The Poets emerge from Hell just before dawn of Easter Sunday (April 10, 1300), and Dante revels in the sight of the rediscovered heavens. As he looks eagerly about at the stars, he sees nearby an old man of impressive bearing. The ancient is CATO OF UTICA, guardian of the shores of Purgatory. Cato challenges the Poets as fugitives from Hell, but Virgil, after first instructing Dante to kneel in reverence, explains Dante’s mission and Beatrice’s command. Cato then gives them instructions for proceeding.

  The Poets have emerged at a point a short way up the slope of Purgatory. It is essential, therefore, that they descend to the lowest point and begin from there, an allegory of Humility. Cato, accordingly, orders Virgil to lead Dante to the shore, to wet his hands in the dew of the new morning, and to wash the stains of Hell from Dante’s face and the film of Hell’s vapors from Dante’s eyes. Virgil is then to bind about Dante’s waist one of the pliant reeds (symbolizing Humility) that grow in the soft mud of the shore.

  Having so commanded, Cato disappears. Dante arises in silence and stands waiting, eager to begin. His look is all the communication that is necessary. Virgil leads him to the shore and performs all that Cato has commanded. Dante’s first purification is marked by a miracle: when Virgil breaks off a reed, the stalk immediately regenerates a new reed, restoring itself exactly as it had been.

  For better waters now the little bark

  of my indwelling powers raises her sails,

  and leaves behind that sea so cruel and dark.

  Now shall I sing that second kingdom given

  the soul of man wherein to purge its guilt

  and so grow worthy to ascend to Heaven.

  Yours am I, sacred Muses! To you I pray. Here let dead poetry rise once more to life, and here let sweet Calliope rise and play

  some fair accompaniment in that high strain

  whose power the wretched Pierides once felt

  so terribly they dared not hope again.

  Sweet azure of the sapphire of the east

  was gathering on the serene horizon

  its pure and perfect radiance—a feast

  to my glad eyes, reborn to their delight,

  as soon as I had passed from the dead air

  which had oppressed my soul and dimmed my sight.

  The planet whose sweet influence strengthens love

  was making all the east laugh with her rays,

  veiling the Fishes, which she swam above.

  I turned then to my right and set my mind

  on the other pole, and there I saw four stars

  unseen by mortals since the first mankind.

  The heavens seemed to revel in their light.

  O widowed Northern Hemisphere, bereft

  forever of the glory of that sight!

  As I broke off my gazing, my eyes veere
d

  a little to the left, to the other pole

  from which, by then, the Wain had disappeared.

  I saw, nearby, an ancient man, alone.

  His bearing filled me with such reverence,

  no father could ask more from his best son.

  His beard was long and touched with strands of white,

  as was his hair, of which two tresses fell

  over his breast. Rays of the holy light

  that fell from the four stars made his face glow

  with such a radiance that he looked to me

  as if he faced the sun. And standing so,

  he moved his venerable plumes and said:

  “Who are you two who climb by the dark stream

  to escape the eternal prison of the dead?

  Who led you? or what served you as a light

  in your dark flight from the eternal valley,

  which lies forever blind in darkest night?

  Are the laws of the pit so broken? Or is new counsel

  published in Heaven that the damned may wander

  onto my rocks from the abyss of Hell?”

  At that my Master laid his hands upon me,

  instructing me by word and touch and gesture

  to show my reverence in brow and knee,

  then answered him: “I do not come this way

  of my own will or powers. A Heavenly Lady

  sent me to this man’s aid in his dark day.

  But since your will is to know more, my will

  cannot deny you; I will tell you truly

  why we have come and how. This man has still

  to see his final hour, though in the burning

  of his own madness he had drawn so near it

  his time was perilously short for turning.

  As I have told you, I was sent to show

  the way his soul must take for its salvation;

  and there is none but this by which I go.

  I have shown him the guilty people. Now I mean

  to lead him through the spirits in your keeping,

  to show him those whose suffering makes them clean.

  By what means I have led him to this strand

  to see and hear you, takes too long to tell:

  from Heaven is the power and the command.

  Now may his coming please you, for he goes

  to win his freedom; and how dear that is

  the man who gives his life for it best knows.

  You know it, who in that cause found death sweet

  in Utica where you put off that flesh

  which shall rise radiant at the Judgment Seat.

  We do not break the Laws: this man lives yet,

  and I am of that Round not ruled by Minos,

  with your own Marcia, whose chaste eyes seem set

  in endless prayers to you. O blessed breast

  to hold her yet your own! for love of her

  grant us permission to pursue our quest

  across your seven kingdoms. When I go

  back to her side I shall bear thanks of you,

  if you will let me speak your name below.”

  “Marcia was so pleasing in my eyes

  there on the other side,” he answered then,

  “that all she asked, I did. Now that she lies

  beyond the evil river, no word or prayer

  of hers may move me. Such was the Decree

  pronounced upon us when I rose from there.

  But if, as you have said, a Heavenly Dame

  orders your way, there is no need to flatter:

  you need but ask it of me in her name.

  Go then, and lead this man, but first see to it

  you bind a smooth green reed about his waist

  and clean his face of all trace of the pit.

  For it would not be right that one with eyes

  still filmed by mist should go before the angel

  who guards the gate: he is from Paradise.

  All round the wave-wracked shore-line, there below,

  reeds grow in the soft mud. Along that edge

  no foliate nor woody plant could grow,

  for what lives in that buffeting must bend.

  Do not come back this way: the rising sun

  will light an easier way you may ascend.”

  With that he disappeared; and silently

  I rose and moved back till I faced my Guide,

  my eyes upon him, waiting. He said to me:

  “Follow my steps and let us turn again:

  along this side there is a gentle slope

  that leads to the low boundaries of the plain.”

  The dawn, in triumph, made the day-breeze flee

  before its coming, so that from afar

  I recognized the trembling of the sea.

  We strode across that lonely plain like men

  who seek the road they strayed from and who count

  the time lost till they find it once again.

  When we had reached a place along the way

  where the cool morning breeze shielded the dew

  against the first heat of the gathering day,

  with gentle graces my Sweet Master bent

  and laid both outspread palms upon the grass.

  Then I, being well aware of his intent,

  lifted my tear-stained cheeks to him, and there

  he made me clean, revealing my true color

  under the residues of Hell’s black air.

  We moved on then to the deserted strand

  which never yet has seen upon its waters

  a man who found his way back to dry land.

  There, as it pleased another, he girded me.

  Wonder of wonders! when he plucked a reed

  another took its place there instantly,

  arising from the humble stalk he tore

  so that it grew exactly as before.

  NOTES

  4. that second kingdom: Purgatory.

  5. to purge its guilt: (See also line 66: those whose suffering makes them clean.) There is suffering in Purgatory but no torment. The torment of the damned is endless, produces no change in the soul that endures it, and is imposed from without. The suffering of the souls in Purgatory, on the other hand, is temporary, is a means of purification, and is eagerly embraced as an act of the soul’s own will. Demons guard the damned to inflict punishment and to prevent escape. In Purgatory, the sinners are free to leave off their sufferings: nothing but their own desire to be made clean moves them to accept their pains, and nothing more is needed. In fact, it is left to the suffering soul itself (no doubt informed by Divine Illumination) to decide at what point it has achieved purification and is ready to move on.

  8. dead poetry: The verses that sang of Hell. Dante may equally have meant that poetry as an art has long been surpassed by history as the medium for great subjects. Here poetry will return to its classic state.

  7-12. THE INVOCATION. Dante invokes all the Muses, as he did in Inferno, II, 7, but there the exhortation was to his own powers, to High Genius, and to Memory. Here he addresses his specific exhortation to Calliope, who, as the Muse of Epic Poetry, is foremost of the Nine. In Paradiso (I, 13) he exhorts Apollo himself to come to the aid of the poem.

  Dante exhorts Calliope to fill him with the strains of the music she played in the defeat of the Pierides, the nine daughters of Pierius, King of Thessaly. They presumed to challenge the Muses to a contest of song. After their defeat they were changed into magpies for their presumption. Ovid (Metamorphoses, V, 294-340 and 662-678) retells the myth in detail.

  Note that Dante not only calls upon Calliope to fill him with the strains of highest song, but that he calls for that very song that overthrew the arrogant pretensions of the Pierides, the strains that humbled false pride. The invocation is especially apt, therefore, as a first sounding of the theme of Humility.

  17. the dead air: Of Hell.

  19-21. The planet whose sweet influence strengthens love: Venus. Here
, as morning star, Venus is described as rising in Pisces, the Fishes, the zodiacal sign immediately preceding Aries. In Canto I of the Inferno Dante has made it clear that the Sun is in Aries. Hence it is about to rise.

  Allegorically, the fact that Venus represents love is, of course, indispensable to the mood of the Purgatorio. At no time in April of 1300 was Venus the morning star. Rather, it rose after the Sun. Dante’s description of the first dawn in Canto I of the Inferno similarly violates the exact detail of things. But Dante is no bookkeeper of the literal. In the Inferno he violated fact in order to compile a perfect symbol of rebirth. Here, he similarly violates the literal in order to describe an ideal sunrise, and simultaneously to make the allegorical point that Love (Venus) leads the way and that Divine Illumination (the Sun) follows upon it.