Comments to Dante's Purgatorio, Cantos XXIX to XXXIII, Part 1

Because it’s one of the greatest moments in all of literature and the climax of Purgatorio, I wanted to do a close reading of Dante’s meeting with Beatrice.  So I’m going to step through Cantos XXX and XXXI.  

The procession that starts in Canto XXIX culminates with Beatrice’s entrance, so Dante the author would be quite a skilled movie director to lay out such a grand entrance.  No one in the entire Divine Comedy gets an entrance like that.  The closest to such an entrance would be Statius’ entrance who is preceded by the earthquake in Canto XX. 

The procession ends with a herald calling out Beatrice with “Veni, sponsa, de Libano,” from the Song of Songs, “Come from Lebanon, my bride.”  It’s a fitting moment in that we expect Dante’s love interest to make her way in, and perhaps we envision some sort of symbolic sacrament of matrimony.  But what we will get is not a sacrament of matrimony but a sacrament of confession. 

One hundred ministers rise up from the chariot (which I guess is more of a wagon than a chariot) and sing three phrases in Latin.  In English they are (1) “at the voice of so great an elder,” (2) “Blessed are you who come,” and (3) “Give lilies with full hands.”  The first phrase is Dante’s original writing but the “elder” refers back to the Song of Songs.  The second comes from the Gospels, most notably from Mark 11:9-10, and the third comes from Virgil’s Aeneid, So in just a few lines Dante the author quickly links his poetic voice, the Old and New Testaments, and Virgil together.  All three quotes seem to accentuate the bridal expectations, especially with all in the procession tossing flowers in the air.  And then we get Beatrice’s entrance:

At break of day, I have seen the sky,

its eastern parts all rosy

and the rest serene and clear

even as the sun's face rose obscured

so that through tempering mist

the eye could bear it longer,

thus, within that cloud of blossoms

rising from angelic hands and fluttering

back down into the chariot and around it,

olive-crowned above a veil of white

appeared to me a lady, beneath a green mantle,

dressed in the color of living flame.  (Purg. XXX. 22-33)

I just noticed as I quoted above, Beatrice completes her entrance on line 33, and no that is not a coincidence.  So many flowers are being tossed in the air that it is obscuring the sun, which in turn parallels the veil that obscures Beatrice’s face.  Beatrice is dressed in the colors of white, the veil over her face, green, the mantle which I assume goes over her shoulders, and red which is the main vestment.  I picture the mantle over the vestment as Dominican friars have a black cloak over white robe.  The colors of white, green, and red are the colors of the Christian virtues, faith, hope, and charity.

The veil echoes the veil in the Holy of Holies, which is to suggest that it is not a veil for modesty as say a Muslim burqa, but a means to protect those who are not ready to experience the power God’s purity.  Indeed, Beatrice takes the veil off shortly when Dante the character has undergone a confession and absolution.

When she finally makes her appearance, Beatrice stands as the focus of attention and if this were a painting she would be positioned in a posture of immense power.  She is in charge and Dante the character trembles from her “majestic force.”  The awe that projects from Beatrice makes Dante childlike in distress, and he turns to Virgil like a child “running to his mamma” and says “Not a single drop of blood/remains in me that does not tremble—/I know the signs of the ancient flame” (46-48).  And when Dante turns to look for Virgil, “the sweetest of fathers,” he is gone, and he breaks down in tears.  This is Virgil’s send off, and Dante the author gives him incredible honor here.  As the comments in your edition probably point out, the three lines he says to a vanished Virgil echo from another of Virgil’s great poems, the Georgics where the severed head of Orpheus cries out for his lost Eurydice.  But more important is the third line “I know the signs of the ancient flame” which is nearly a direct quote from Virgil’s Aeneid.  The line comes from Queen Dido when after her husband died and swearing off ever marrying again, she sees Aeneas enter her court and falls in love with him.  She says to her sister, “I feel again the traces of the ancient flame.” 

With Dante crying because he suddenly realizes he has lost his poetic father and guide, Beatrice finally speaks.

Dante, because Virgil has departed,

do not weep, do not weep yet--

there is another sword to make you weep.'  (55-57)

As pointed out, this is the only moment where Dante’s name is spoken in the entire Commedia,” and we get Dante’s and Virgil’s names side by side in the same line, thereby honoring himself and honoring Virgil.  “Oh don’t cry Dante,” she is saying almost like a mother, “don’t cry.”  And then she turns scornful, “Because I’m going to stab you with another sword that’s going to make you really cry.”  Obviously this is not the greeting we all expected. 

And then Dante the author further emphasizes Beatrice’s position of power, standing “like an admiral” at the prow and Dante the character’s diminutive status by having him look away like a child in trouble.  “Look over here” she scornfully commands.  “I am, I truly am Beatrice./How did you dare approach the mountain?/Do you not know that here man lives in joy?” (73-75).  She uses the same phrasing as in Isaiah 43, “I am, I am the Lord,” and further echoes Moses going up Mt. Sinai and approaching God with reverence.  How did Dante dare to approach the mountain?  It was only through her intercession and God’s grace that he made it up.  And then she scornfully questions whether he realizes that up here in earthly paradise “man lives in joy.”  That is to say, not with sexual longing.  Has Dante brought his sexual desires up the holy mountain where holiness commands purity? 

I lowered my eyes to the clear water.

But when I saw myself reflected, I drew them back

toward the grass, such shame weighed on my brow.  (76-78)

Just like Adam and Eve felt shame when they had eaten of the fruit, so too Dante feels shame.  But shame for what? 

Here then the angels plead for mercy and Beatrice he must draw out sorrow.  She makes a wonderful allusion to the sower and seed parable found in all three synoptic Gospels. 

'Not only by the working of the wheels above

that urge each seed to a certain end

according to the stars that cluster with them,

'but by grace, abundant and divine,

which rains from clouds so high above

our sight cannot come near them,

'this man in his new life potentially was such

that each good disposition in him

would have come to marvelous conclusion,

'but the richer and more vigorous the soil,

when planted ill and left to go to seed,

the wilder and more noxious it becomes. (109-120)

In the parable, the seed must fall on good soil for it to bear fruit, but here Beatrice says that a bad seed on good soil yields bad fruit.  Dante, being so intelligent and gifted, is the good soil, but the philosophy that is the seed lacked faith in God, so it yielded a sinful poet.  I’ve never seen anyone turn that parable like that.  I wonder if that is original to Dante the author.  It sounds like it came from a great preacher, say like St. Augustine or St. Thomas Aquinas.  But none of the commentaries in my possession cite anyone. 

Then Beatrice recounts how when alive she guided him with her eyes, and when she died he should have kept his focus on her. 

'For a time I let my countenance sustain him.

Guiding him with my youthful eyes,

I drew him with me in the right direction.

'Once I had reached the threshold of my second age,

when I changed lives, he took himself from me

and gave himself to others.

'When I had risen to spirit from my flesh,

as beauty and virtue in me became more rich,

to him I was less dear and less than pleasing.

'He set his steps upon an untrue way,

pursuing those false images of good

that bring no promise to fulfillment—

'useless the inspiration I sought and won for him,

as both with dreams and other means

I called him back, so little did he heed them. (121-135)

That is the crux of her indictment: he took himself away from her, “gave himself to others,” “pursuing false images of good.”  And so to save him she had to have him pass through the region of the dead to see what to see the fullness of life.

This ends Canto XXX.  Perhaps this is a good place to break since this has gotten a bit long.  I’ll conclude this shortly.