Divine Comedy: Purgatory | Page 4

Seventh Ledge:the Lustful.--The
mode of their Purification.
CANTO XXVI. Seventh Ledge: the Lustful.--Sinners in the fire, going
in opposite directions.--Guido Guinicelli.--Arnaut Daniel.
CANTO XXVII. Seventh Ledge: the Lustful.--Passage through the
Flames.--Stairway in the rock.--Night upon the stairs.--Dream of
Dante.--Morning.--Ascent to the Earthly Paradise.--Last words of
Virgil.

CANTO XXVIII. The Earthly Paradise.--The Forest.--A Lady

gathering flowers on the bank of a little stream.--Discourse with her
concerning the nature of the place.
CANTO XXIX. The Earthly Paradise.--Mystic Procession or Triumph
of the Church.
CANTO XXX. The Earthly Paradise.--Beatrice appears.--Departure of
Virgil.--Reproof of Dante by Beatrice.
CANTO XXXI. The Earthly Paradise.--Reproachful discourse of
Beatrice, and confession of Dante.--Passage of Lethe.--Appeal of the
Virtues to Beatrice.--Her Unveiling.
CANTO XXXII. The Earthly Paradise.--Return of the Triumphal
procession.--The Chariot bound to the Mystic Tree.--Sleep of
Dante.--His waking to find the Triumph departed.--Transformation of
the Chariot.--The Harlot and the Giant.
CANTO XXXIII. The Earthly Paradise.--Prophecy of Beatrice

concerning one who shall restore the Empire.--Her discourse with
Dante.--The river Eunoe.--Dante drinks of it, and is fit to ascend to
Heaven.
PURGATORY
CANTO I. Invocation to the Muses.--Dawn of Easter on the shore of
Purgatory.--The Four Stars.--Cato.--The cleansing of Dante from the
stains of Hell.
To run over better waters the little vessel of my genius now hoists its
sails, and leaves behind itself a sea so cruel; and I will sing of that
second realm where the human spirit is purified and becomes worthy to
ascend to heaven.
But here let dead poesy rise again, O holy Muses, since yours I am, and
here let Calliope somewhat mount up, accompanying my song with that
sound of which the wretched Picae felt the stroke such that they

despaired of pardon.[1]
[1] The nine daughters of Pieros, king of Emathia, who,
contending
in song with the Muses, were for their presumption changed to
magpies.
A sweet color of oriental sapphire, which was gathering in the serene
aspect of the sky, pure even to the first circle,[1] renewed delight to my
eyes soon as I issued forth from the dead air that had afflicted my eyes
and my breast. The fair planet which incites to love was making all the
Orient to smile, veiling the Fishes that were in her train.[2] I turned me
to the right hand, and fixed my mind upon the other pole, and saw four
stars never seen save by the first people.[3] The heavens appeared to
rejoice in their flamelets. O widowed northern region, since thou art
deprived of beholding these!
[1] By "the first circle," Dante seems to mean the horizon.
[2] At the spring equinox Venus is in the sign of the Pisces, which
immediately precedes that of Aries, in which is the Sun. The time
indicated is therefore an hour or more before sunrise on Easter morning,
April 10.
When I had withdrawn from regarding them, turning me a little to the
other pole, there whence the Wain had already disappeared, I saw close
to me an old man alone, worthy in look of so much reverence that no
son owes more unto his father.[1] He wore a long beard and mingled
with white hair, like his locks, of which a double list fell upon his
breast. The rays of the four holy stars so adorned his face with light,
that I saw him, as if the sun had been in front.
[1] These stars are the symbols of the four Cardinal Virtues,-- Prudence,
Temperance, Fortitude, and Justice,--the virtues of active life, sufficient
to guide men in the right path, but not to bring them to Paradise. By the
first people arc probably meant Adam and Eve, who from the terrestrial
Paradise, on the summit of the Mount of Purgatory, had seen these stars,
visible only from the Southern hemisphere. According to the geography
of the time Asia and Africa lay north of the equator, so that even to

their inhabitants these stars were invisible. Possibly the meaning is that
these stars, symbolizing the cardinal virtues, had been visible only in
the golden age.
This old man, as soon appears, is the younger Cato, and the office here
given to him of warden of the souls in the outer region of Purgatory
was suggested by the position assigned to him by Virgil in the Aeneid,
viii. 670. "Secretosque pios, his dantem jura Catonem."
It has been objected to Virgil's thus putting him in Elysium, that as a
suicide his place was in the Mourning Fields. A similar objection may
be made to Dante's separating him from the other suicides in the
seventh circle of Hell (Canto XIII.). "But," says Conington, "Virgil did
not aim at perfect consistency. It was enough for him that Cato was one
who from his character in life might be justly conceived of as lawgiver
to the dead." So Dante, using Cato as an allegoric