This
is the second part of my survey of Dante’s second cantica of the Divine Comedy, the Purgatorio. You can find the
first part here.
Perhaps
a word should be given to the originality of Dante’s vision of purgatory. The Roman Catholic understanding of purgatory
is based on solely as a staging place for the souls to be purified before
entering heaven. It’s based on tradition
which came from the Church Fathers (Saints Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, Gregory,
Origin, Tertulian, etc) which was derived from Judaism’s praying for the dead,
several references in the Old Testament, and Paul’s first letter to the
Corinthians (1 Cor 10-15), where he states
10 According to the
grace of God given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and
another is building upon it. But each one must be careful how he builds upon
it,11for no one can
lay a foundation other than the one that is there, namely, Jesus Christ.12If anyone builds on
this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw,13the work of each will
come to light, for the Day* will disclose it. It will
be revealed with fire, and the fire [itself] will test the quality of each
one’s work.14If the
work stands that someone built upon the foundation, that person will receive a
wage.15But
if someone’s work is burned up, that one will suffer loss; the person will be
saved,* but only as through fire.
That
purging fire cleanses the soul who then is made worthy for heaven. Catholics situate the place which that occurs
by the name of purgatory; Eastern Orthodox acknowledges the purgation but do
not situate a locale; most Protestants don’t seem to acknowledge either. So at best, purgatory is an amorphous notion
without much detail. That people have a
vision of purgatory as a structured place where various types of sins are
healed is solely a result of Dante’s creation.
It is a testament to how influential to its culture the Divine Comedy
became.
Dante’s
structure for purgatory in one respect mirrors the structure he gives
hell. Sins increase in severity as one
corkscrews downward to the heart of hell; sins in purgatory decrease in gravity
as one winds (also in corkscrew) up the mountain. Purgatorio is located on an island in the
southern hemisphere in polar opposition to Jerusalem. But unlike hell, there is daylight on
purgatory, perhaps its most significant difference, where sunshine and shadow
metaphorically reflect the complex nature of life. There is daytime and nighttime here, struggle
and dreams of contemplation, song and suffering, acknowledgement of one’s
transgressions and desire for refinement, and ultimately a desire for freedom,
a freedom from one’s compulsions and disorders.
The journey here is a journey to growth in love, a love that unbinds the
soul from human constrictions. I
personally find Purgatorio more
interesting than either Inferno or Paradisio. It’s the most human of the three canticas.
Dante
divides the mountain of Purgatorio into three main sections: Ante-Purgatory, the
lower ridges where the souls are slowed down based on their earthly apathy
toward penitence; Purgatory proper where the seven terraces purify the seven
deadly sins; and then Earthly Paradise where the Garden of Eden was situated
for Adam and Eve. Each is further subdivided, each in essence
has a portal from which one enters, and each portal has an attendant who
invites the soul in. Contrast the
attendants of Purgatorio, who welcome and guide, with the demon sentinels of Inferno, who punish and suppress the
condemned.
Let
me discuss Ante-Purgatory in this post, reserving the other sections for their
own posts. The portal of Ante-Purgatory
is actually the beachhead of the island, and the attendant is the ancient
Roman, Marcus Porcius Cato. Right there
in the very first canto we have an unusual character for purgatory. Cato was a pagan, born and died prior to
Christ, and he committed suicide, a mortal sin.
Purgatory and heaven are reserved for baptized Christians, let alone for
those that commit suicide. There was a
realm in hell where Dante situated the virtuous pagans, those who did not have
the opportunity to know Christianity but led moral lives. So as one enters the realm of the saved (all
those in Purgatory will undoubtedly after purification be allowed into heaven)
we have incongruity, which I think is Dante’s way of showing that God is not
fixed by rules. But why Cato? Apparently there has been a long debate
through the centuries on this. Cato was a noble citizen of Rome, a man involved
in the issues and actions of his day, of the highest moral integrity, and of
uncompromising faith in his tradition, all attributes that reflect on the
themes of the Commedia. But in addition, Cato stood on the side of
freedom in the Roman Civil Wars that ended the Republic, and purgatory is a
realm of liberation. Cato then is a
perfect selection.
Ante-Purgatory
is subdivided into the penitents who were excommunicated and those who were
late repentant, late by either lack of effort or died suddenly unabsolved. The lower on the mountain, the more difficult
the climb, so that these souls in Ante-Purgatory because they were indolent in
life must wait an extraordinary amount of time before they can even get to the
gate of purgatory proper. Unlike hell,
where the souls are permanently locked into the circle of their punishment,
penitents in Dante’s purgatory must work their way to paradise, experiencing each
form of penance on each terrace. Here’s
a passage of a character who was excommunicated, a King Manfred of Sicily who
died in battle. But first Dante and
Virgil meet a group of like penitents who suddenly marvel that what they see of
Dante is not a soul but a flesh and blood body.
What they observe is that Dante the character casts a shadow since he is
a living person while souls have light pass right through them. When Virgil (Dante’s “Master”) explains to
the souls of Dante’s situation, Manfred steps forward and introduces himself.
When those in front saw
that the light on my
right side was broken,
so that the shadow extended
from me to the cliff,
they stopped and drew
back somewhat, and all
the others that were
coming after, without
knowing why, did the
same.
“Without your asking, I
confess to you that this
is a human body you
see, by which the light of the
sun is split upon the
ground.
Do not marvel, but
believe that not without
power that comes from
Heaven does he seek to
surmount this wall.”
So my master; and that
worthy folk: “Turn
back,” they said, “walk
on ahead of us, therefore,”
making a sign to us
with the back of their hands.
And one of them began:
“Whoever you are, as
we walk turn your eyes
to me: consider if you have
ever seen me back
there.”
I turned toward him and
looked at him closely:
he was blond and
handsome and of noble appearance,
but a sword-blow had
divided one of his brows.
When I had humbly
denied ever seeing
him, he said: “Now
see,” and showed me a wound
high on his breast.
Then smiling, he said:
“I am Manfred,
grandson of the Empress
Contance; and so I beg
you when you return,
go to my lovely
daughter, mother of the honor
of Sicily and Aragon,
and tell her the truth, if
something else is being
said.
After I had my body
broken by two mortal
thrusts, I gave myself
up, weeping, to him who
gladly pardons.
Horrible were my sins;
but the infinite
Goodness has such open
arms that it takes
whatever turns to it.
-Canto 3.88-123, Durling
translation.
Manfred
had been excommunicated, like his father Frederick II who Dante met in hell,
both Kings who were quite sinful to put it mildly. You can read about the historical Manfred,
and Frederick II. But Manfred is different than his
father. He approaches Dante with a smile—there
is no smiling in hell—shows him his horrible wounds and asks Dante when he
returns to earth to tell his daughter to pray for him as prayers help the
people in Purgatory move faster to their goal.
A man with such horrible wounds and yet smiles holds no bitterness. Prayers and smiles are a sign of a soul with
hope, and hope is paramount. “Horrible
were my sins,” Manfred says (admission the first step toward repentance), but
the infinite/Goodness has such open arms that it takes whatever turns to it.”
To
turn is to convert, and to convert is to appeal to God. But notice that even though he has been
excommunicated—removed from the Church—he is saved, and then contrast that with
his father and the several popes Dante situates in hell and realize that though
the Church is helpful toward salvation (Manfred still has the longest journey
to reach paradise) it is not definitive, either in getting you saved or
preventing you from being saved.
Another
soul Dante meets in Ante-Purgatory, though further up with those who died
unabsolved is the medieval troubadour poet Sordello de Goito. As I mentioned in the first post on Purgatorio, one of the themes of the Commedia is how beauty stems from God,
and the beauty most discussed is that of poetry. Of the many poets Dante the character meets
throughout his journey, the majority of them must be (I haven’t counted to be
sure) in Purgatorio. Why this is, I’m not exactly sure. On the one
hand art created to reflect God’s beauty is virtuous, but the act of creation
rivals God and inherently inflates pride.
Later when Dante passes through the terrace of pride, he will say that
pride is the sin that he most struggles with.
After all he is the greatest poet to have ever lived, and he realized
his genius.
The
character and rendition of Sordello provides a excellent example of how
integrated the themes of the Commedia
are. Dante and Virgil meet Sordello in Canto
Six. Uncoincidentally canto six in all
three canticas, Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradisio contain political themes.
Here in Purgatorio Dante and
Virgil, unsure of the route forward espy a soul, who turns out to be Sordello,
lying down alone. Virgil comes up to him
and asks him what the best path forward is.
We came up to it: O
Lombard soul, how
proudly and
disdainfully you were holding
yourself, and how
worthy and slow was the
moving of your eyes!
The soul said nothing
to us, but was letting us
go by, only gazing, in
the manner of a lion when it
couches.
Still Virgil drew near
to it, begging that it show
us the best upward
path; and it did not reply to his
question,
but asked us of our
city and our life; and my
sweet leader: “Mantua…”
and the shade
all gathered in itself,
rose toward him from
the place where it had
been, saying, “O
Mantuan, I am Sordello from
your city!” and each
embraced each other.
-Canto
6.61-73, Durling translation.
This
seemingly innocuous scene is followed without a transition by a long digressive,
invective, the longest in the entire Commedia,
by Dante the author on the political state of his homeland. Dante goes on to call Italy a slave and a
whore, cities filled with tyrants and traitors, self-centered and criminal, a
place where laws are meaningless and where neighboring cities fight wars with
each other. The very fact that the two
Mantuans feel a sense of community, despite their separation of 1300 years or
so contrasts to the dog eat dog world of Dante’s Italy and more specifically
Florence. Remember, Dante is exiled from
his city-state, an act of severance, which was a common practice in Dante’s
day, while Virgil and Sordello unite, the very opposite of severing. The digression goes through the end of Canto
Six, and finally the narrative returns at the beginning of Canto Seven where
Sordello asks about their identity and finds out that one of the two is the
famous poet Virgil.
After the virtuous,
glad welcomes had been
repeated three or four
times, Sordello drew back
and said, “Who are
you?”
“Before souls worthy to
rise to God were turned
to this mountain, my
bones were buried by
Octavian.
I am Virgil, and for no
other crime did I lose
Heaven than for not
having faith.” Thus my
leader replied then.
As one who suddenly
sees before him a
thing that makes him
marvel, who both believes
and does not, saying
“It is, it is not…”:
so did that other
appear; and then he bent his
brow and humbly turning
toward Virgil,
embraced him where the
lesser takes hold.
“O glory of the
Italians,” he said, “through
whom our language
showed its power, O eternal
honor of the place I
was from,
what merit or what
grace shows you to me? If I
am worthy to hear your words, tell me if you
come
from Hell, and from
what cloister.”
-Canto 7.1-21, Durling
translation.
Now
take in the complete scene. When
Sordello hears his local accent and learns the soul before him is from his home
town he embraces (an iconic image of unity) the fellow citizen without even
knowing who he is. Then when the soul identifies
himself as Virgil, the Roman poet, Sordello, who is a poet himself and used the
same Latin language to write his works, is stunned, as if he’s seeing a
“marvel.” He becomes humble—bending his
brow—and embraces him again and says, “O glory of the Italians…through/whom our
language showed its power…” Here are
three poets standing together, two of whom are united in language and in
identity and one who laments the fragmentation of his homeland. What Dante is suggesting is that through the
beauty of language people unite and form a more perfect union, which unites a larger
circle of people (“the Italians”) as a common community in the glorification of
God’s prelapsarian purpose. The Tower of
Babel is a fragmenting event; it is the job of the poet to bind back the people
with moral vision and common language.
Notice
how rich that little scene is, so simple and subtle, but with so much
meaning. And I didn’t even probe the
intertextuality of that scene with others.
Dante’s Divine Comedy is that
deep and complex. I must give credit to
an essay which helped me along in the analysis I just put forth: “Bertran de Born and Sordello: The Poetry ofPolitics in Dante's Comedy,” by Teodolinda Barolini, published in Modern
Language Association, May 1979. You
can access it on the web here. It’s well
worth reading.
Finally I want to end this post on Ante-Purgatory
with the twilight setting at the beginning of Canto Eight, a famously beautiful
passage, perhaps one of the best poetic narrative passages in history. I’m going to pick the Esolen translation for
its poetry, but while Esolen does a fine job in translation, it still pales to
Dante’s Italian. There’s no way for
Esolen to reproduce the vowel sounds, and the “l,” “s,” and soft “c” consonant
sounds that give the coming evening a lulling and hushed sound. Try to read it in Italian here. You can
also hear it read on youtube here, you’ll have to go 30 seconds in for the
reading to begin and the 33 lines I quote ends at 2:45. Just to
orient you, what’s happening is that Dante hears the Compline bells ring as
evening drops and sees a man pray the Te luces ante (Thee Before
Nightfall) and then the surrounding souls join him by singing it. Then suddenly two angels with swords come down
to protect the souls from the serpent for the evening.
That hour had fallen
when the sailor bends
his yearning and his
softened heart toward home,
the day he’s bid
farewell to his sweet friends;
The hour that wrings
the pilgrim just away
should he hear home’s
bells afar
that seem to mourn the
dying of the day—
When I began to let all
sound slip by
as beheld one spirit
rise and ask
attention, with a
gesture of his hand.
He joined his palms
together, raised them high
as if he prayed, “I
have no other care,”
fixing his gaze upon
the eastern sky.
“Thee Before Nightfall” so devoutly
came from his lips,
with notes so sweet, they made
me move beyond my mind
in ecstasy,
While all the rest with
sweet and pious love
followed the soul in
singing the whole hymn,
holding their eyes upon
the wheels above.
Reader, my veil is
woven now so thin,
sharpen your eyes to
look upon the truth
and easily shall your
vision pass within.
Silently then I saw
that princely host
gazing on high as sentinels
on the watch,
waiting, in pallor and
humility.
And I saw come from
Heaven and descend
two angels brandishing
their fiery swords,
but those were cropped
and blunted at the end.
Green as the fresh
leaves springing on the stem,
so green their garments
were, and wings of green
swept them astream
behind them in the wind.
-Canto 7.1-33, Esolen
translation.
I
might add that in Purgatory there are hymns and psalms sung in every scene it’s
part of the therapy of transformation toward holiness for the penitents. In this canto, you’ll have another hymn sung
later on, the Salve Regina. This would make such a great movie
scene. I hope you go on to read the
entire passage.
And yet we have this ability to read complex words
and sentences on a page that we process and recreate in our brains. Our brains are truly remarkable organs. It really does separate us from the
animals. Think about it. According to Wikipedia chimpanzees have 98% similarity in genetic code and yet our ability to think and process is light
years beyond. The amount of process that
goes on in just reading one word is startling, given that you have to categorize each
letter, organize to phonemes, associate it to grammatical function, and
associate it with nouns or actions or concepts.
The article quotes a researcher who claims that reading is a “cultural
invention,” which I guess is true, but frankly if it were only that they could
teach a chimp to write a paragraph. I
don’t buy that. There seems to be
something special about the human brain.
