October 2010 Print

Reading and Commentary

Dr. David Allen White

“Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between them; there is no third.”

–T.S. Eliot

PART 6

The question of the nature of art is a complicated and interesting one. The relationship between faith and art is also admittedly difficult. (Consider the problem faced by Palestrina dealing with the holy churchmen of his time, a conflict so dramatic that the dilemma itself produced a work of art–the opera Palestrina, composed by Hans Pfitzner.) The question is important. As a preface to a further consideration of the Purgatorio, let us consider these questions further.

It is noteworthy that so many characters in the Purgatorio are artists. There were a few in the Inferno, but there are many more in the Purgatorio. Further, art itself plays a large role in the Purgatorio. Dante, a complex thinker, gives us different visions of art as we climb Mount Purgatory. From the very beginning of the work in the first canto he announces that he is singing “about that second realm” where death’s poetry will arise to life. So as he begins the Purgatorio he is aware of himself as a poet and aware of his own art. He has a greater awareness of this after going through the Inferno. There is some measure of clarity in his mind now and, thus, he is going to focus on his art.

In the Paradiso, art will become even more important. But as he ascends through Paradise Dante speaks of his own role as artist, giving a description of what he sees, a different approach from his analysis of art in the Purgatorio. At the end of Canto 2 in the Purgatorio, the ship of souls has arrived on the shores of the ante-Purgatory. Those souls who go directly to Heaven still have to arrive there, and they get to go very quickly up the mountain; God’s love pulls them right up into the Paradiso. Nevertheless, they still arrive on the shores with the other souls, those whose movement upward will be delayed.

When they arrive, Dante runs into a friend of his, whom he knew, named Casella. We begin with the arrival of the souls singing together, in a single voice, the In exitu Israel de Aegypto. This is interestingly the same verse Dante uses to explain the nature of his art throughout the whole Divine Comedy. The levels on which that same Biblical verse can be read are profound. Then Dante meets this individual singer, musician, and poet, Casella. Casella had set one of Dante’s earlier secular poems to music. Dante is delighted to meet him and says:

…“pray sing, and give a little rest
to my poor soul which, burdened by my flesh,
has climbed this far and is exhausted now.”

St. Thomas had taught that the soul needs diversion just as the body needs rest. Dante above is speaking of the soul being burdened by the flesh, which needs some entertainment. So Casella begins singing:

Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona,
began the words of his sweet melody–
their sweetness still is sounding in my soul.

My master and myself and all those souls
that came with him were deeply lost in joy,
as if that sound were all that did exist.

The art transports them.

And while we stood enraptured by the sound
of those sweet notes—a sudden cry: “What’s this,
you lazy souls?” It was the Just Old Man.

The Just Old Man is Cato. Why would Cato be in charge of overseeing the entryway into Purgatory? Mark Musa, the translator, indicates that it may be because he was the lawgiver in Rome; thus, he is connected with human reason. We are entering that realm in Purgatory where things operate very much according to laws, orders, and rules, even more so than before in the darker domain. Hence Cato oversees it.

“What negligence to stand around like this!
Run to the mountain, shed that slough which still
does not let God be manifest to you!”

The sense of this passage is essentially this: why are you wasting your time sitting around listening to earthly songs? Even if the lyrics are by Dante, and the music is from a very good musician, you are still wasting your time. It is an interesting passage. Time plays a very important part in the Purgatorio. Dante makes the point that time is precious to these souls. They are constantly aware of time, how much time they have to spend in the ante-Purgatory, how much time they can climb the mountain on any given day while the sun is up, etc. Time is crucial to them. The lesson we are meant to learn is how much more this should be the case with those of us still living. If those dead souls are so aware of time and concerned with spending it wisely, and are ordered by Cato not to waste their time, we who are alive should be even more aware of time, its value and its passing.

Is it, however, also a criticism of art itself? “Don’t waste your time on secular art.” Is this fair? Once we get through the ante-Purgatory, in which art plays a role, Purgatory is filled with song. The souls are constantly singing. Contrast this with the unending horrendous noise and terrible cacophony in Hell. Purgatory is a place of beautiful music where the suffering souls spend much of their time singing sacred songs and hymns. More than this, however, there is a certain art that is part of Mount Purgatory itself.

Look at Canto 10, where we come upon the souls of the proud. Keep in mind the order is inverted from Hell; in the Inferno, the further down we went, the graver the sins became. On Mt. Purgatory, the graver sins are closest to the base of the mountain. When we begin to ascend, those who are most weighed down are the prideful. Dante comes to that first terrace of the proud and, at the beginning, suddenly realizes that there are carvings, bas-reliefs, in the ground and on the sides as he is walking. They are pictorial representations of those proud souls who suffered for their pride. Then we get visions of humility, of souls that were humble. In both extremes we are getting pictorial lessons carved into the very rock. These are for the sake of the souls that are climbing.

So if there is a criticism of art in the Purgatorio, the criticism would be of secular art; such as the love poem of Dante’s set to music by Casella, a secular love song. But there is also praise for the kind of art that instructs. Let me emphasize: the two functions of art are to delight and to instruct. It seems as if the entertainment side of art is lost in the Purgatorio. It is not as important anymore. Art as instruction, however, is elevated here. The very lessons we need to learn can be taught through such images as appear to the souls of the proud.

Beyond the bas-reliefs in the realm of pride, there are further artistic visions. In the terrace of envy there are disembodied voices speaking lines of poetry and Scripture; there is no visual side to the terrace of envy since the envious have their eyelids sewn shut “like falcons,” as the poet says. Because they have been envious of what they had seen, now they are not allowed to see at all. They sit weeping with tears streaming from their sewn-shut eyes: it is an incredible and disturbing vision. The emphasis for the envious is on what they hear.

In the realm of wrath or anger, the souls are given ecstatic extraordinary visions to calm them. So art is everywhere in the poem: visions, sounds, and other representations. All of this is artistic in nature and this seems to be a good thing. There is thus a double vision: on the one hand, a criticism of art in its secular form, an art that must be left behind, and on the other hand, an acknowledgment that art in its instructional power is good and necessary. Dante seems to be exploring this subject of art to a degree as he makes his way through the entire journey. We will find something very different in the Paradiso. Art, however, will still be a subject.

Returning to the proud, let us look at when Dante first sees these figures moving toward him:

“Master, what I see moving towards us there,”
I said, “do not seem to be shades at all;
I don’t know what they are, my sight’s confused.”

“The grievous nature of their punishment,”
he answered, “bends their bodies toward the ground;
my own eyes were not sure of what they saw.

Try hard to disentangle all the parts
of what you see moving beneath those stones.
Can you see now how each one beats his breast?”

The vision of the proud is of souls bent over, doubled over. They are looking at the ground. This is why the lessons to be taught are etched in bas-reliefs on the ground. Each one is carrying an enormous stone on his back, as if each one cannot bend of his own will so he must carry the stone to force a punishment. As they move along, they are beating their breasts. It is an extraordinarily imaginative vision. This is a perfect example of how the Catholic tradition is necessary to understand great Catholic art. Anyone who knows the Tridentine Mass understands this imagery. The lesson being taught to the proud is that they must humble themselves by carrying these stones and beating their breasts; the image is that of the Confiteor. This is a moment where the liturgy meets art to give us the full vision of how the liturgy moves us through this world and teaches us lessons which, if we do not learn now, we will have to learn in Purgatory.

Let us also take a look at the nature of love as defined in the Purgatorio. Cantos 16, 17, and 18 are the center, not only of the Purgatorio, but of the whole Divine Comedy. This is where Dante chooses to explore his major theme, the nature of love itself. We can see examples of false love in the Inferno. We will have visions of pure and perfect love in the Paradiso. The souls in Purgatory are actually being taught about the real nature of love. Therefore, all the way up the mountain, we are somehow getting improper love. The souls knew love. If they had not had some understanding of love, they would have never made it to Purgatory. The souls in the Purgatorio have somehow known love. When we hit the depths of the Inferno, we met souls that did not know love. Satan separated himself from Love. Indeed, there is a reason why those with Satan—Judas, Brutus, and Cassius—are those who had betrayed friends and benefactors; they denied love altogether to those to whom they most owed love. In fact, they gave hate and betrayal instead. At the core of Hell, there is no love. It does not exist there at all. Everywhere, as we climb Mount Purgatory, is love. But it is a kind of imperfect love. There are lessons of love that must be learned.

Purgatory is divided into three parts: the ante-Purgatory, Mount Purgatory, and, at the top of the mountain, the earthly Garden of Eden. But Mount Purgatory itself is divided into three parts, the number three again dominating the entire poem. As we go up, we travel through Lower Purgatory, Mid-Purgatory, and Upper Purgatory. Lower Purgatory is the first three levels in which we encounter the first three of the seven deadly sins—pride, envy, and wrath—all have to do with love that has been perverted. This is easy enough to see.

Pride is a love of self that has been perverted from love of neighbor. Envy is a perverted love of what the neighbor possesses, or a desire to be in his position. Wrath is a perverted emotional connection with others, replacing love with anger. The first danger then is that love can be perverted, twisted from what it should be.

In mid-Purgatory we reach the center of the mountain, the fourth level. This is the level of sloth. This is defective love. It is a love which is lacking in fullness. It is a love which is so small and withered that it is not what it should be. This applies to both love of neighbor and love of God. On the level of the slothful we meet examples of both defective loves.

Finally, Upper Purgatory contains the last three levels. Here we encounter excessive love. It is an over-abundance of love that has gone wrong. The fifth level is avarice, those who have loved goods and material things too much. The sixth level is gluttony, those who have excessively loved food and drink. Finally, we have the seventh level, that of the lustful. These have loved the physical too much. Quite literally they have loved their fellow man but in a physical way; thus, they are punished, but they are at the top of Purgatory.

We have three different twistings of love, if you will: perverted, defective, and excessive love. In the center, just at the level of sloth, we have discussions of love. At the end of Canto 16, the wrathful are enclosed in smoke, blinded by smoke, just as they had been blinded by anger in life. Dante hears their voices beautifully singing the Agnus Dei. One of the souls, Marco Lombardo, steps out of the smoke. He gives the first of the lessons on love. The Pilgrim and Marco Lombardo discuss God as He creates creatures, the beginning of love:

You are free subjects of a greater power,
a nobler nature that creates your mind,
and over this the spheres have no control.

So, if the world today has gone astray,
the cause lies in yourselves and only there!
Now I shall carefully explain that cause.

From the fond hands of God, Who loves her even
before He gives her being, there issues forth
just like a child, all smiles and tears at play,

the simple soul, pure in its ignorance,
which, having sprung from her Creator’s joy,
will turn to anything it likes.

At first she is attracted to a trivial toy,
and, though beguiled, she will run after it,
if guide or curb do not divert her love.

Men, therefore, needed the restraint of laws,
needed a ruler able to at least
discern the towers of the True city.

If the pure soul will turn to anything it likes, there must be order. Law is important all through the Purgatorio, from Cato the Lawgiver in the ante-Purgatory to the end. Marco Lombardo makes it clear—and this is an obsession for Dante—that we were provided with two different lawgivers, restraints, or rulers. One is the Church and her laws. She is able to control men’s souls and give the laws necessary to order that unrestricted love in the right direction. This is, of course, specifically the case with spiritual things. The other thing, however, is secular government. Specifically for Dante the Empire is that secular government, a large political system that governs as the secular equivalent of the Church. Both are necessary.

There is a great deal of political criticism in the Divine Comedy. Dante had been aware that there had been an upheaval in his own time. This was the weakening of the Empire, the strengthening of the Church in political matters, and, as a result, the strengthening of independent city-states. Those city-states, as they grew stronger, caused increasing problems politically simply because of the rise of hostilities between them. Dante insisted on the importance of monarchy, and even wrote a prose work called De Monarchia, On Monarchy. The vision of monarchy naturally leads to one head, and that would have been the Emperor. The Emperor’s job was to rule the Empire and Dante was critical of the attempts of city-states to be independent.

In De Monarchia, he talks about the proper function of humana civilitas, “civilized humanity”: “to keep the whole capacity of the possible intellect constantly actualized, primarily for speculation and secondarily for action.” That is, the Empire exists, proper government exists, so that the intellect can be constantly actualized for thought and then action in the secular realm. He saw this order breaking down. He saw, if you will, a kind of inversion where the Empire was crumbling and the city-state was taking over; eventually, we can follow this through to when the individual intellect becomes the source of all definition. In the same way, in the spiritual realm over time, the Church has lost its authority, rejected by men and replaced by individual protesting sects, each claiming to be the true one. This finally leads to each man being his own church and priest. This process had already begun in the secular realm and Dante was aware of it. But he locates it in two different realms: the Church and the State.

In fact, he saw that the Church was gaining the power that the Empire was losing and criticizes it, as he was very skeptical of the Church gaining too much control in the secular realm. His ideas here remain controversial even today and continue to be debated. Perhaps one can simply say that having experienced the Church authorities uniting with his political opponents in Florence, a religious-political alliance that resulted in his permanent exile from that city, his beloved home, how can we be surprised that he was critical of the melding of these spheres of influence? These ideas appear in the midst of a discussion about the soul, and love born in the soul. We see the love of the spiritual realm for its children, grabbing power when it can, perhaps out of good motives, but nevertheless intruding into a sphere that Dante says is not proper for it:

Tell the world this: The church of Rome, which fused
two powers into one, has sunk in muck,
defiling both herself and her true role.”

Her role, as Dante believed, is spiritual, the guidance of souls entrusted to her. The secular realm, the Empire, was to oversee in much the same way, with a similar structure, the temporal concerns of souls, but the Church has taken over secular authority, spending its time immersed in politics. This is Marco Lombardo’s argument. Dante’s response is “Well argued, my dear Marco.”

This is the first vision of love, the simple soul issuing from God, longing for everything. If you then look at the end of Canto 17, Virgil is now giving a lesson. Throughout all of the Divine Comedy, especially the Inferno and the Purgatorio, Virgil is the voice of reason. Here is a reasoned analysis of love. It occurs right as we have come to the terrace of the slothful, those who were lacking in love. Theirs was an ineffective and inadequate love. Dante asks where they are and “what offense is purged on this terrace?” Virgil replies:

“That love of good which failed to satisfy
the call of duty, here is fortified:
the oar once sluggish now is plied with zeal.

But if you want to better understand,
give me your full attention: you will reap
excellent fruit from this delay of ours.

Neither Creator nor his creatures ever,
my son, lacked love. There are, as you well know,
two kinds: the natural love, the rational.

The first point is that the Creator is all love, perfect love. Hence, His creation must also possess love. Nothing that God created has ever been without love. Natural love is what is given, what is infused in the soul which allows it to exist at all.

Natural love may never be at fault;
the other may: by choosing the wrong goal,
by insufficient or excessive zeal.

Natural love can never be at fault because, if natural love were withdrawn, the animating power of God’s nature, we would all cease to exist. It would be the end of us. The rational love is the love that we choose. Here we also get a definition of the levels in Purgatory.

While it is fixed on the Eternal Good,
and observes temperance loving worldly goods,
it cannot be the cause of sinful joys;

but when it turns toward evil or pursues
some good with not enough or too much zeal–
the creature turns on his Creator then.

So, you can understand how love must be
the seed of every virtue growing in you,
and every deed that merits punishment.

Here is the definition. Love is the source of everything in us that is good, but also the seed of everything that is defective since we are somehow turning away or perverting it by choice. The damned souls in the Inferno chose, with their rational love, to be there. They had the potential to make the right choice in love and they chose otherwise. God is just in putting them there.

The beginning of Canto 18 goes back to the creation of the soul and natural love. We are still in the terrace of the slothful. We are here about to be given visions of zealous souls. One involves the Blessed Virgin and another Julius Caesar, a curious combination. It is, in some way, the counterpart to Judas, Brutus, and Cassius in the pit of Hell. Here we get lessons in love from Our Lady and Caesar. Judas deserted our Lord, Mary stood by the foot of the cross; Brutus and Cassius betrayed their emperor; Caesar was the one betrayed. Lines from Canto 18:

“Now focus your mind’s eye on what I say,”
he said, “and you will clearly understand
the error of the blind who lead the blind.

The soul at birth, created quick to love,
will move toward anything that pleases it,
as soon as pleasure causes it to move.

From what is real your apprehensive power
extracts an image it displays within you,
forcing your mind to be attentive to it;

and if, attentive, it inclines toward this,
that inclination is love: Nature it is
which is through pleasure bound anew in you.

Just as a fire’s flames always rise up,
inspired by its own nature to ascend,
seeking to be in its own element,

just so, the captive soul begins its quest,
the spiritual movement of its love,
not resting till the thing loved is enjoyed.

It should be clear to you by now how blind
to truth those people are who make the claims
that every love is, in itself, good love.

They think this, for love’s substance, probably,
seems always good, but though the wax is good,
the impression made upon it may be bad.”

The central vision of the Divine Comedy is love and its nature. These are the cantos in which it is explored. They deserve closer study. Dante continues to rise and he begins to encounter the great love he was given on earth. For the rest of the Purgatorio, he will live through what is described here. Certain recognitions will be brought upon him.

Let us jump almost to the end, to Canto 29. Let us look at Mark Musa’s introduction of this canto, which leads us to Beatrice. This is the last moment before she appears. We get a curious and mysterious pageant which Musa describes perfectly. The entire vision is a vision of the history of Scripture and the Church up until Dante’s time:

The seven candlesticks represent the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit....The twenty-four elders stand for the books of the Old Testament, as counted by St. Jerome. The four creatures symbolize the four Gospels....The chariot represents the church. Literally, the griffin is a mythical beast who is part eagle and part lion. Here, his dual nature is symbolic of the two natures of Christ, who was both human and divine. The three ladies dancing to the right of the chariot are the theological virtues...the four to the left, the cardinal virtues....The seven men who follow the chariot are the rest of the books of the New Testament...the four men of humble mean are the other minor epistles.

The final figure represents the Apocalypse. There is a moment later where the chariot goes through different stages, the history of the Church. It includes an attack by the dragon. Scripture and the Church occupy much of Canto 29. This is the definition of our sources of truth. Once that appears, and the procession comes to a halt, the elders turn to face the chariot, the Church. They begin singing and, through a rain of flowers, Beatrice appears.

There is a quotation from the Song of Solomon, there is the Alleluia, there is the Benedictus, and then a line of Latin verse: Manibus, O, date lilia plenis. (“O, give handfuls of lilies.”) This comes from Virgil. The words were written by Virgil when he was describing the death of the young child Marcellus. The cost of founding Rome was the death of the child Marcellus. In Virgil, the line is one of great sadness. In Dante, the line is quoted at the moment Beatrice is about to appear. What we have is the sorrow, the weight, and the imperfect vision of the classical world transformed into the hope that is presented by the true Faith. The appearance of Beatrice in the poem is profound; if Virgil represents reason, Beatrice is grace. As reason is replaced by grace, this single line of poetry is transformed from sorrow to joy. It is a magnificent moment.

Dante is so overwhelmed that he is about:

to say to Virgil: “Not one drop of blood
is left inside my veins that does not throb;
I recognize signs of the ancient flame.”

But Virgil was not there. We found ourselves
without Virgil, sweet father, Virgil to whom
for my salvation I gave up my soul.

Virgil does not say goodbye. At some point, reason is superseded by grace. Beatrice is there instead:

All the delights around me, which were lost
by our first mother, could not keep my cheeks,
once washed with dew, from being stained with

tears.

But then Beatrice speaks:

“Dante, though Virgil leaves you, do not weep, not yet, that is, for you shall have to weep from yet another wound. Do not weep yet.”

Notice her coming. It is a symbol of grace touching the Christian soul. It is not sentimental. This is the moment he has hoped and dreamed for. It is the reason he took the journey. The presentation was magnificent, the flowers rained down, she stood before him—and told him to stop crying.

Just as an admiral, from bow or stern,
watches his men at work on other ships,
encouraging their earnest labors—so

rising above the chariot’s left rail
(when I turned round, hearing my name called out,
which of necessity I here record),

I saw the lady who had first appeared
beneath the angelic festival of flowers
gazing at me from beyond the stream.

Although the veil that flowed down from her head,
fixed by the crown made of Minerva’s leaves,
still kept me from a perfect view of her,

I sensed the regal sternness of her face,
as she continued in the tone of one
who saves the sharpest words until the end:

“Yes! Look at me! Yes, I am Beatrice!
So, you at last have deigned to climb the mount?
You learned at last that here lies human bliss?”

I lowered my head and looked down at the stream,
but, filled with shame at my reflection there,
I quickly fixed my eyes upon the grass.

I was the guilty child facing his mother,
abject before her harshness: harsh,
indeed, is unripe pity not yet merciful.

This is magnificent. A lover is confronting his beloved, but what happens? The whole tradition of courtly love is transformed into the child before a stern mother. The whole nature of the relationship is changed, with all that implies. Beatrice is now no longer earthly or worldly love; she is a representative of the Blessed Virgin. This is what Dante is confronting. Here is the woman he loved, but she is different. It is not what he expected.

As soon as she stops speaking, the angels rush into the psalm Domine, in te speravi. Beatrice begins nailing Dante. And although she is speaking to him, it is the voice of God’s grace speaking to every human soul. At this point we all become the pilgrim if we have followed him in his journey. It is the dramatic climax of the poem. If, in the center of the Purgatorio, we had the intellectual climax with the vision and definition of love, here is the dramatic climax as the pilgrim soul stands before his beloved. It is a surprise ending; it is not what one thought or expected.

“With your eyes fixed on the eternal day,
darkness of night or sleep cannot conceal
from you a single act performed on earth;

and though I speak to you, my purpose is
to make the one who weeps on that far bank
perceive the truth and match his guilt with grief.

Not only through the working of the spheres,
which brings each seed to its appropriate end
according as the stars keep company,

but also through the bounty of God’s grace,
raining from vapors born so high above
they cannot be discerned by human sight,

was this man so endowed, potentially
in early youth—had he allowed his gifts
to bloom, he would have reaped abundantly.

But the more vigorous and rich the soil,
the wilder and the weedier it grows
when left untilled, its bad seeds flourishing.

There was a time my countenance sufficed;
I allowed him to look into my young eyes
for guidance on the straight path to his goal;

but when I passed into my second age
and changed my life for Life, that man you see
strayed after others and abandoned me;

when I had risen from the flesh to spirit,
became more beautiful, more virtuous,
he found less pleasure in me, loved me less,

and wandered from the path that leads to truth,
pursuing simulacra of the good,
which promise more than they can ever give.

I prayed that inspiration come to him
through dreams and other means: in vain I tried
to call him back, so little did he care.

To such depths did he sink that, finally,
there was no other way to save his soul
except to have him see the Damned in Hell.
That this might be, I visited the Dead,
and offered my petition and my tears
to him who until now has been his guide.

The highest laws of God would be annulled
if he crossed Lethe, drinking its sweet flow,
without having to pay at least some scot
of penitence poured forth in guilty tears.”

The Pilgrim is speechless; the canto ends. If you look at the very beginning of Canto 31, without a break she continues:

“You, standing there, beyond the sacred stream,”
she cried, not pausing in her eloquence
and turning now the sword point of her words

toward me, who had already felt its blade,
“speak now, is this not true? Speak! You must seal
with your confession this grave charge I make!”

I stood before her paralyzed, confused;
I moved my lips, my throat striving to speak,
but not a single breath of speech escaped.

She hardly paused: “What are you thinking of?
Answer me, now! Your bitter memories
have not as yet been purged within this stream.”

My fear and deep chagrin, between them, forced
out of my mouth a miserable “yes”–
only by ears with eyes could it be heard.

A crossbow, drawn with too much tension, snaps
bowstring and bow together, and the shaft
will strike the target with diminished force;

so I was shattered by the intensity
of my emotions: tears and sighs burst forth,
as I released my voice about to fail.

They go back and forth with Dante refusing to look at her. He finally begins speaking with her and admits to what he has done:

Weeping I said: “Those things with their false joys,
offered to me by the world, led me astray
when I no longer saw your countenance.”

She gives him lesson after lesson. After she finishes her speech, the poet gives this description:

As children scolded into silence stand
ashamed, with head bowed staring at the ground,
acknowledging their fault and penitent–

so I stood there. Then she: “If listening
can cause you so much grief, now raise your beard
and look at me and suffer greater grief.”

Notice the word “beard”; the implication is that Dante is a man of some age who should know better.

With less resistance is the sturdy oak
uprooted by the winds of storms at home
in Europe or by those that Iarbas blows,

than my soul offered to her curt command
that I look up at her: she called my face
my “beard”! I felt the venom in her words.

And when I raised my head, I did not look
at her, but at those first-created ones:
they had already ceased their rain of flowers.

He looks at the angels first. Dante still cannot look directly at Beatrice.

Then when I turned my unsure eyes once more,
I saw that Beatrice faced the beast
who in two natures is one single being.

This is the griffin; Beatrice is facing the symbol of the image of Christ.

Though she was veiled and on the other shore,
lovelier now, she seemed, than when alive
on earth, when she was loveliest of all.

I felt the stabbing pain of my remorse:
what I had loved the most of all the things
that were not she, I hated now the most.

The recognition of my guilt so stunned
my heart, I fainted. What happened then is known
only to her who was the cause of it.

Notice that we are back at the beginning of the Inferno, an echo of the moment when he was seduced by Francesca. He was then so overcome with false pity that he fainted. This is the second time Dante faints. The first time is caused by a false love; now he faints out of true remorse and pity. The Pilgrim is now ready; the seven P’s are gone from his forehead and he has gone through the wall of fire. He is about to cross over the river, a vision of a kind of new baptism. He will now be guided into the Paradiso by Beatrice. Let us close with the last lines of the Purgatorio:

From those holiest waters I returned
to her reborn, a tree renewed, in bloom
with newborn foliage, immaculate,

eager to rise, now ready for the stars.

 

(To be continued.)

Dr. David Allen White taught World Literature at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, for the better part of three decades. He gave many seminars at St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Winona, Minnesota, including one on which this article is based. He is the author of The Mouth of the Lion and The Horn of the Unicorn. All quotes from The Divine Comedy are taken from Mark Musa’s translation, published by Penguin Books. Illustrations by Gustave Doré.