Don’t Panic This is a help, not a requirement For Dante read Sayers book, comments, perhaps . This follows the same format as

Don’t Panic

• This is a help, not a requirement

• For Dante read Sayers book, comments, perhaps http://dante.dartmouth.edu.

• This follows the same format as Quine’s book. There are many notes on the slide in the note section, these are extra for explanation; e.g. in PowerPoint click L. lower corner for notes.

TERZA RIMA• Terza Rima is a poetic rhyme scheme which

involve interlocking rhymes, written in iambic tercets. – iambic is a metrical foot consisting of one short

syllable followed by one long syllable or of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable

– tercet is one of the 3-line stanzas in terza rima– Terza Rima was written in hendecasyllable, or 11

syllables

"Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate" (3.9)Leave behind all hope, you who enter ,

Click box

Lay Down All Hope , You That Go In By Me ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄

TERZA RIMA

• The rhyme scheme is aba bcb cdc ded (and soforth)

• The last tercet stands alone and rhymes with the preceding mid tercet, or the middle preceding line.

THROUGH ME THE ROAD TO THE CITY OF DESOLATION, THROUGH ME THE ROAD TO SORROWS DIUTURNAL,

THROUGH ME THE ROAD AMONG THE LOST CREATION.

A

B

A

• THROUGH ME THE ROAD TO THE CITY OF DESOLATION,

• THROUGH ME THE ROAD TO SORROWS DIUTURNAL,

• THROUGH ME THE ROAD AMONG THE LOST CREATION.

• JUSTICE MOVED MY GREAT MAKER; GOD ETERNAL

• WROUGHT ME: THE POWER, AND THE UNSEARCHABLY• • HIGH WISDOM, AND THE PRIMAL LOVE SUPERNAL.

• NOTHING ERE I WAS MADE WAS MADE TO BE

• SAVE THINGS ETERNE, AND I ETERNE ABIDE;

• LAY DOWN ALL HOPE, YOU THAT GO IN BY ME.•

˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘

˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘

˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄ ˘ ΄

A

B

A

B

C

B

C

D

C

Notes

Terza Rima

• Perhaps introduced to literature by Dante• It was well suited to The Divine Comedy, since it

gives a propulsive marching cadence • The three-line stanzas reflects other trinity

groupings in The Divine Comedy which contribute to a complex symbolism. – the triune God, – Inferno three beasts in the first canto; – three holy women send Virgil to guide him; – Satan has three heads and chews on three sinners. – The entire work is divided into the Inferno,

Purgatorio, and Paradiso

Terza Rima

– The Inferno has three subdivisions• Ante-Inferno, Upper Hell, and Lower Hell.• Hell is divided into nine circles

– Purgatorio • Ante-Purgatory, Lower Purgatory, and Upper Purgatory• Peter’s Gate with Three steps and acts of Penance

– Paradiso has 33 cantos like Purgatorio and Inferno (which has a general intro for the whole)

– Overall the idea of the Trinity pervades the work, and reflects the Triune aspect of God in His Creation

THE DIVINE COMEDY: PURGATORY

• BACKGROUND INFORMATION from The Catholic Catechism– The Final Purification - Purgatory

• All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven (1030).

• The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned. (Council of Trent 1563, Counsel of Florence 1304, and Benedict XII, Benedicts Deus 1330). The Church formulated her doctrine of faith on Purgatory especially at the Councils of Florence and Trent. The tradition of the Church, by reference to certain texts of Scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire (I Corinthians 3:15; and I Peter 1:7):

– As for certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the final judgment, there is a purifying fire. He who is truth says that whoever utters blasphemy against the Holy spirit will be pardoned neither in this age nor in the age to come. From this sentence we understand that certain offenses can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the age to come (St. Gregory the Great).

• This teaching is also based on the practice of prayer for the dead, already mentioned in Sacred Scripture. "Therefore [Judas Maccabees] made atonement for the dead, that they might be delivered from their sin (II Mac. 12:46). From the beginning the Church has honored the memory of the dead and offered prayers in suffrage for them, above all the Eucharistic sacrifice, so that , thus purified, they may attain the beautiful vision of God (Council of Lyons 1274). The Church also commands alms giving, indulgences, and works of penance undertaken on behalf of the dead.

– Let us help and commemorate them. If Job's sons were purified by their father's sacrifices, why would we doubt that our offerings for the dead bring them some consolation? Let us not hesitate to help them who have died and to offer our prayers for them (St. John Chrysostom).

note


• Questions to Consider when you read The Divine Comedy: Purgatory by Dante:What is Dante's view of purgatory?

• What does the Bible say about ...

• The death of Jesus and our purification?

• Our position in Christ?


• WHAT TO LOOK FOR WHEN YOU READ PURGATORY ...

• Excommunication - a punishment for sin.• If a person has been excommunicated from the

Church he can either ..1.Repent and reconcile with the Church and thereby go

to Purgatory

2.Repent at the end of life, but not have time to be restored to the Church, and go to Ante-Purgatory

3.Not repent and go, like other non-repentants, to Hell.


• Peter's Gate• Seven Roots of Sinfulness (Seven Deadly Sins)

Around it run seven terraces, on which are punished severally the Seven Deadly Sins. Rough stairways, cut in the rock, lead up from terrace to terrace, and on the summit the garden of the Terrestial Paradise (Longfellow).1. Pride; 2. Envy; 3. Anger; 4. Sloth; 5. Avarice and Prodigality; 6. Gluttony; 7. Lust.


• Ante-Purgatory Lower Purgatory Upper Purgatory

– The Mountain of Purgatory is a vast conical mountain, rising steep and high from the waters of the Southern Ocean, at a point antipodal to Mount Sion in Jerusalem. In Canto III. 14, Dante speaks of it as

“The hill That highest tow'rds the heaven uplifts itself”;– and in Paradiso, XXVI. 139, as

“The mount that rises highest o'er the wave.”

– The threefold division of the Purgatorio, marked only by more elaborate preludes, or by a natural pause in the action of the poem, is, -- 1. From Canto I. to Canto IX.; 2. From Canto IX. to Canto XXVIII.; 3. From Canto XXVIII. to the end. The first of these divisions describes the region lying outside the gate of Purgatory; the second, the Seven Circles of the mountain; and the third, the Terrestrial Paradise on its summit (Longfellow).


• On every Cornice the discipline of Penitence follows the same pattern:

• The Penance– The Meditation

• The Prayer– The Benediction

» The Angel of the Cornice


• CANTO I• Cato of Utica:( Line 31) Cato of Utica (born 95 B.C.), one of the chief

opponents of Caesar's measures. After the battle of Thapsus, he comitted suicide rather than fall into his enemy's hands (46 B.C.). This was regarded as the supreme act of devotion to liberty (Conv. iii. 5: 90; De Mon. ii. 5: 98), and partly accounts for his position here (see vv. 71, 72); though Virgil's line -- secretosque pios, his dantem jura Catonem (AEn. viii. 670), which refers to the good set apart from the wicked in the world beyond, probably weighed more heavily with Dante. Our poet's general conception of Cato is derived from Lucan (Pharsalia, ii. 373-391); and his intense admiration of the man in and of his character finds expression in several passages of the Convito (iv. 5: 103; 6: 71; 27: 23; 28: 92). Cato's position as warder of the Christian Purgatory is probably to be explained in a similar way as the position of Ripheus in Paradise (see Par. xx. 118 sqq., and note); note especially the allegorical significance of the stars in vv. 37-39, and the fact that Sole is often synonymous with God (Hermann Oelsner (1899), Purgatorio). See Carroll’s note

Cato of Uticahttp://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/purgatory/01antepurgatory.html#cato


• The Holy Four Stars (Line 37): the Cardinal Virtues – 1 - Justice– 2 -Prudence– 3 - Temperance– 4 - Fortitude

• Seven Kingdoms (Line 82) the seven cornices where the seven sins are purged

• The Dew (Line 131) Virgil washed Dante’s face after coming out of Hell

• The Reed -- The reader will remember that Dante's original rope-girdle was thrown over the Great Barrier between Upper and Nether Hell, to call up the monster Fraud. (See Inf. xvi. Images.) He is now given a new one, made of the pliant reed which symbolizes Humility, as a safeguard against Pride, which is the head and source of all the Capital Sins (Sayers, 78)

•


• CANTO II• The Ship Of Souls In Hell the souls of the damned assemble on the bank of the River

Acheron, and are ferried to Hell by the Demon Charon: the souls of the saved assemble at the mouth of the River Tiber, and are ferried by an Angelic Pilot across the whole width of the world to Purgatory. In each case, the ferryman selects his own boat-load. Charon plies an oar (which he uses, incidentally, to thump his passengers into submission): the Angel needs "no oar, no sail but his own wings". The damned, wailing and blaspheming, embark one by one (fellowship is lost); the saved sing their hymn in unison and disembark all together (fellowship is recovered). (Phlegyas note)

• See Notes At The End Of This Canto: 1-9: The Sun By Now... It is sunset at Jerusalem (in the Northern Hemisphere) and consequently sunrise in Purgatory (at the Antipodes). The Ganges, in India, is taken as lying on the eastern horizon of Jerusalem, and the Pillars of Hercules on the western. Since (as we know from Inf. i. 37) the Sun is in Aries (the Ram), Night is located in the opposite sign from him - that of Libra (the Scales). The Scales "fall from the hand of Night" when the Sun enters the sign, i.e. at the autumn equinox, when the nights become longer than the days (Night's "hour of victory").

• 7: Fair Aurora the goddess of the dawn• 17-24: A Light ... From Each Side Of It ... A White I Knew-not-what the boat coming from

a distance over the horizon, what is odd is how great a distance the angel covers in a short time. The light was first the halo of the head of the angel and then the wings. Eventually the boat is seen.


• CANTO II• 42:So Swift And Light -- This is the "lighter skiff" to which Charon referred in Inf. iii. 91-3,

when he said that Dante should pass by "another road and other ferries (Sayers,85).• 43Freehold Of Bliss • 46: In Exitu Israel De Aegypto from Psalm 114 Dante write to Can Grande della Scala

how to under stand his book “When Israel came out of Egypt and the House of Jacob from among a strange people, Judah was his sanctuary and Israel his dominion". For if we regard the letter alone, what is set before us is the exodus of the Children of Israel from Egypt in the days of Moses; if the allegory, our redemption wrought by Christ; if the moral sense, we are shown the conversion of the soul from the grief and wretchedness of sin to the state of grace; if the anagogical, we are shown the departure of the holy soul from the thraldom of this corruption to the liberty of eternal glory. And although these mystical meanings are called by various names, they may all be called in general allegorical, since they differ from the literal and historical.

• The subject of the whole work, then, taken merely in the literal sense is "the state of the soul after death straightforwardly affirmed-, for the development of the whole work hinges on and about that. But if, indeed, the work is taken allegorically, its subject is: "Man, as by good or ill deserts, in the exercise of his free choice, he becomes liable to rewarding or punishing Justice“ (Sayers, Hell, 15).”


• 56: The Goat Capicorn• 61: Virgil Replied ...• 67: Whose Breathing Showed D. was breathing. Virgil was panting as he brought D.

out off hell Hell, XXXIV:83. • 70: An Olive-bough• 80-81: Three Times ... A dear friend of Dante, Casella was a singer and composer

from Florence (or perhaps the nearby town of Pistoia). He set lyric poems to music and performed these arrangements, as he does here on the shores of Purgatory with Dante's canzone, "Love that speaks within my mind" (2.112) (click on black box). Casella died sometime before Easter Sunday 1300 (when Dante arrives in Purgatory) and after July 13, 1282, the date of a document from Siena reporting that he was fined for wandering about the city at night. Casella's own arrival now, after having previously been refused passage to Purgatory, is a result of the plenary indulgence granted by Pope Boniface VIII on Christmas 1299 for the Jubilee year (1300). He smiles, showing both affection and bemusement, when Dante tries futilely to embrace his soul-body (2.76-84), a scene recalling how Aeneas sought to clasp the shade of his father, Anchises, in the underworld of Virgil's Aeneid (6.700-2).

• 98: For Some Three Months • 101: Tiber notes

"Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona" (2.112)Love that speaks within my mind


• CANTO III• Terrace I: The Excommunicates Who Are They? notes

– Why Are They Here? Repented on their death bed, but excomunicated – How Are They Described? unlike the impenitent in Hell, they endure their suffering in hope and patience– How Long Must A Person Stay At This Level? 30 X # years of contumacy

• 9: REPROACH FOR ONE SMALL SLIP When Cato's rebuke scattered the listening crowd toward the hill like a flock of startled doves, the two poets joined in the general flight. Dante, however, indicates plainly enough that he did not regard the fault for which they were so sharply reproved as a very serious one. Virgil hurries toward the Mountain with greater shame than the occasion calls for:

He seemed to me within himself remorseful, O noble conscience, and without a stain, How sharp a sting is trivial fault to thee!

• This may seem scarcely consistent with the interpretation of the 'song of love' given in last chapter {see comm. to Purg. 2.118-123}. If, for instance, the pursuit of Philosophy is an element of that unfaithfulness to herself with which Beatrice charged Dante so sternly in the Earthly Paradise above, it is obvious that she at least did not regard it as a 'trivial fault.' Nor did Dante when he stood before her, scarce able to falter forth his grief for tears. What seems to his unpurified conscience at the foot of the Mountain a slight error, is seen at last to have been one of the fountain-heads of the Seven Deadly Sins, which he has purged away with so much pain and labour. (The relation of Philosophy to Dante's unfaithfulness to Beatrice, however, must not be exaggerated. It is only one element, and not the most important. The 'school' referred to in Purg. xxxiii. 85-90 is not, as is commonly assumed, Philosophy in general, but, as the entire context shows, the politico-theological school which claimed 'the two governments,' temporal and spiritual, for the Papacy. Aquinas advocates it in his De Regimine Principium, but his teaching is utterly repudiated by Dante in the De Monarchia and the Cantos dealing with the Earthly Paradise.) (Carroll)


• 18: MY SHADOWY OUTLINE• 25: VESPER-TIDE -- It is 3 P.M. in Italy (where Virgil's body is buried): and therefore 6 P.M. in

Jerusalem and 6 A.M. in Purgatory.• 27: NAPLES RECEIVED IT FROM Brundisium -- Virgil died (19 B.C.) at Brundisium (Brindisi), in

Apulia on the Adriatic coast, and his body was transferred by the orders of Augustus to Naples. His supposed tomb is still to be seen, on the road to Pozzuoli.

• 29-30: THE HEAVENS UNSTAYED As they move toward the heights, Dante tells us he was startled by noticing that while the sun threw his own shadow on the ground before him, it cast none of his companion. In terror lest he was forsaken, he turned eagerly to see if his 'Comfort' was still by his side. This is his first opportunity of noticing that Virgil cast no shadow, for the Inferno was a world of darkness in which the sun never shone. This seems to be introduced in order to follow up Cato's rebuke of Philosophy, for Virgil, in his character of Reason, uses it as a text to point out the limits of the human intellect. Dante's fear that he was deserted sprang from his ignoring the existence of such limits. His folly lay in assuming that God's creative power was confined to the one species of body with which he was familiar. Virgil's own body in which once he cast a shadow had been taken from Brundusium and now lay at Naples ('I cannot help quoting,' says Plumptre, 'a verse from the striking hymn said to have been sung at Mantua in the fifteenth century, and, it may be, earlier, in the Festival of St. Paul. St. Paul, it was said, went to Naples to visit the tomb of Virgil: -- “Ad Maronis mausoleum / Ductus, fudit super eum, / Pie rorem lacrymae; / 'Quem te,' inquit, 'reddidissem, / Si te vivum invenissem, / Poetarum Maxime.'”' He adds, however, that the evidence for this is hazy); but God had given him another quality of body, which no more obstructs the sunlight than the nine spheres of Heaven hinder the rays from descending from one to another. Moreover these transparent bodies are so made that they can 'suffer torments of heat and cold' (Aquinas, Summa, iii. Suppl. q. lxx, a. 1, 2, 3).


• 31: BODIES LIKE MINE aery• 37: content you with the quia: Aristotle, and, following him, the

Schoolmen, distinguish between two kinds of demonstration: (I) the knowledge that a thing is, obtained by arguing a posteriori, from effect to cause: this is the demonstration quia; (2) the knowledge why a thing is as it is, obtained by arguing a priori, from cause to effect: this is the demonstration propter quid. In this life, finite minds cannot (11. 32-6) know God as He is (in His quiddity), but only by His effects; and must therefore be content to know only the quia of His mysterious Providence (Sayers, 93).

• 39: NO NEED HAD BEEN FOR MARY TO CONCEIVE -- Had it been possible for mankind to know all things propter quid, there would have been no need for the revelation in human terms by the Incarnation. And had Adam and Eve been contented with the quia, man would not have fallen, nor needed to be redeemed by Christ's death (cf. xxix. 23-30 and note, (Sayers, 93)).


• 42: WHICH NOW IS GIVEN THEM – Inf. IV:34-45 They sinned not; yet their merit lacked its chiefest

Fulfilment, lacking baptism, which isThe gateway to the faith which thou believest;

Or, living before Christendom, their kneesPaid not aright those tributes that belong To God; and I myself am one of these.

For such defects alone - no other wrong -We are lost; yet only by this grief offended: That, without hope, we ever live, and long."

Grief smote my heart to think, as he thus ended,What souls I knew, of great and soveran Virtue, who in that Limbo dwelt suspended

• 50: BETWEEN TURBIA AND LERICI • 61: "MASTER" ...Here D. is one of faith, and now offers help to his guide

who is not of faith. In 63 others can counsel who are members of faith.• 65: THIS LOITERING BAND – those who have been excommunicated now

loiter as they did in life.


• 68: WHAT HERE WE'D CALL A THOUSAND PACES

• 70: THEY ALL SHRANK ...


• 112: MANFRED A handsome, warrior-like nobleman, Manfred (c. 1232-66) is the illegitimate son of the emperor Frederick II, who is listed among the heretics in Inferno 10. Raised in the cosmopolitan Hohenstaufen court in Sicily, Manfred knew several languages (including Hebrew and Arabic) and was a poet and musician as well as a patron of arts and letters (e.g., the "Sicilian School" of poetry). Dante praises both him and Frederick as exemplary rulers for their noble, refined character (De vulgari eloquentia 1.12.4). Manfred also authored a document, "Manifesto to the Roman People" (May 24, 1265), that advances a political philosophy not unlike Dante's. Following the death of his father, and later his half-brother (Conrad IV), Manfred assumed power and had himself crowned King of Sicily in 1258. His political successes were perhaps not unrelated to the "horrible sins" to which he now alludes (3.121) (audio): he was alleged by some to have murdered his father, half-brother, and two nephews, and to have tried to assassinate the heir to the throne (his nephew Conradin). Allied with the ghibelline cause (he helped defeat the guelphs at Montaperti in 1260), Manfred was certainly no friend of the papacy: he was twice excommunicated, first by Alexander IV in 1258 and then by Urban IV in 1261. So abhorrent was Manfred to popes of the period (they considered him a "Saracen" and "infidel") that they declared a crusade and sent an army under the command of Charles I of Anjou to defeat him. His troops vastly outnumbered, Manfred was betrayed by some of his own men and killed in battle at Benevento (southern Italy) on February 26, 1266.

Manfred


• (Manfred cont) He now shows Dante his battle scars (an eye-brow split by a sword-stroke and a wound on his chest) and relates the fate of his poor body. An excommunicate, Manfred was refused burial in sacred ground and left on the battlefield, but, the legend goes, each enemy soldier as he passed by placed a stone on the grave. Later, according to Dante's version, the Archbishop of Cosenza, at the behest of Pope Clement IV, had Manfred's bones disinterred and cast outside the kingdom onto the banks of the river Verde (3.124-32). The excommunicates, Manfred informs Dante, must wait in Ante-Purgatory thirty times the length of their period of excommunication, unless the sentence is shortened by prayers of the living (3.136-41).

• 115-116: THE MAJESTIES OF SICILY AND ARAGON -- Manfred's daughter Constance married Peter III of Aragon, and had three sons who succeeded one another as kings of Aragon and Sicily (v. subt. vii. 115-20).

• 121: MY SINS WERE HORRIBLE Manfred was further accused (rightly or wrongly) of having murdered his father, his brother Conrad, and two of his nephews, and of attempting to murder his nephew Conradin. These charges are chronicled by Brunetto Latini in his Livre dou Tresor, which Dante had certainly read (Inf. xv. 3o and note).


• CANTO IV• Terrace 2 (Line 48): The Late-repentant - The Indolent Who Are They? They were

death bed repenters, they waited till death to repent.• Why Are They Here? waiting• How Are They Described? Slothful, almost sleeping• How Long Must A Person Stay At This Level? The number of years of their earthly

life. • 6: THAT SOUL IS KINDLED ABOVE SOUL IN US - Dante is here repudiating the

theory (ascribed to Plato, and reproduced with some modifications by the Manichaeans) that man possesses a plurality of souls, each with its own organs. Aristotle combats this theory; and so does St Thomas Aquinas (S. TM', q. 26, a. 3) giving among other reasons, the fact that "when one operation of the mind is intense, it impedes others, a thing which could nowise happen unless the principle of actions was essentially one". This is Dante's argument here. (For the full Aristotelian-Thomist doctrine of the three powers, Nutritive, Sensitive, and Intellectual, blended to form "one single soul complete", see Purg. xxv. 52 sqq. and notes.)

• 10-12: THAT WHICH MARKS IT... • 16: FIFTY DEGREES ... 9:30 a.m.• 24: WHEN THAT FLOCK LEFT US ...


• 25-26: You CAN MOUNT UP... • 41: THE LINE FROM CENTRE ... 45°• 48: A LEDGE OF ROCK 2nd terrace• 57: 50 THAT HE SMOTE US ON THE LEFTWARD

HAND the sun• 61-62: CASTOR ... AND POLLUX "If it were June

instead of March, and the Sun therefore in Gemini (the sign of the Twins, Castor and Pollux),

• 62-63: THAT BURNING MIRROR the Sun, which receives the divine light from above (i.e. from the Empyrean) and reflects it upward to God and downward to the earth.


• 68-70: THINK OF ZION "Think of Purgatory as being at the exact antipodes of Zion (Jerusalem)." The horizon is here not, of course, the visible but the astronomical horizon: "a great circle of the celestial sphere, the plane of which passes through the centre of the earth and is parallel to the sensible [visible] horizon of a given place." (O.E.D. Sayers,101)

• 21: THAT ROAD ILL-TRIED BY PHAETON --Phaëton, the son of Phoebus Apollo, in order to prove his parentage, which had been doubted, asked his father to let him drive the chariot of the sun for one day. The request was granted, but Phaeton was too weak to hold in the chargers, scorched a portion of the Heavens and almost set the Earth on fire. To save the latter from destruction, Jupiter put a stop to Phaeton's erratic course by killing him with a thunderbolt (cf. Par. xvii. 1-3)(Hermann Oelsner (1899), Inferno 17.106-108).

• 79-84: THE EQUATOR OF THE SKY... As they thus sit facing the East, Dante notices to his great surprise that the sun is on his left hand, whereas he was accustomed in this position to see it on his right. Virgil gives him a long astronomical explanation, the substance of which is that they are now in the Southern Hemisphere, at the exact antipodes of Jerusalem; and that being on the other side of the Equator, the sun is of necessity on his other hand. If this has any symbolic significance, which is doubtful, it must be connected with the left hand, which represents the dark, sinful side of human life. When the soul has climbed even a little way out of its sin, that sin becomes clearer to it -- the Divine light shines upon the left hand, revealing how great is the evil that remains. It may, however, be nothing more than one of the many instances of Dante's love of astronomical studies. (The suggestion about the meaning of the sun revealing the left or sinful side may be regarded as one of those over-subtleties into which commentators are apt to fall; but we have undoubtedly the same idea in the reflection of Dante's 'left flank' in Lethe in Canto xxix. 67-69.) (John S. Carroll (1904), Purgatorio 4.57-84)

Sayers, 100


• 88: THIS MOUNT IS SUCH...penitence gets easier the higher up the mt. one goes. How does Virgil know about the climb up Mt. Purgatory. The commentators hold that at times D. must guide Virgil. See notes.

• 122: BELACQU -- Florentine, contemporary of D., said by the old commentators to have been a musical instrument-maker; modern research has suggested his identification with one Duccio di Bonavia detto Belacqua, a notary; he is placed by D. in Ante-purgatory among those who neglected their repentance until just before death, Purg. iv. (Toynbee, 69-70)

• 129: THAT BIRD OF GOD Angel of God• 137-139: THE SUN DOTH STAND noon


• CANTO V • Miserere (Line 24) This Is The Special Prayer Of The Unshriven:

Have Mercy Upon Me, 0 Lord...Psalm 51 a Penitential Psalm, (also Ps 6,32,38,102,130,139,143)– Terrace 2 (Line 52...) The Late-repentant - The Unshriven Who Are

They? This second group consists of those who were cut off in their sins by battle or murder, and so died unshriven. Since circumstances are partly responsible for their death, they occupy a slightly higher position than the Indolent, and have a prayer of their own; but they are still surrounded by the atmosphere of haste and agitation which attended their last moments.

– Why Are They Here? They did not repent till the hour of their death.– How Are They Described? In haste and agitation, as they were at death.

• How Long Must A Person Stay At This Level? till their sins are purged away, which may be a lifetime as the indolent on this terrace, unless prayer by those on earth intercede.


• 10-13 As the Pilgrims turn away to resume their journey, a curious incident occurs. One of the souls startles his lazy comrades into looking up by a cry that Dante casts a shadow and acts as one alive. Turning, Dante finds them all gazing at him and his shadow in amazement, and for this pause Virgil administers a sharp rebuke:

'Why is thy mind so much entangled,' The Master said, 'that thou thy pace dost slacken? What matters it to thee what there is whispered? Come behind me, and let the people talk. Stand as a steadfast tower, that never shakes Its summit for the blowing of the winds; For ever the man in whom thought wells up Over thought, removes from him the mark, Because the onset of the one dissolves the other.'


• Dante, with the colour 'which sometimes makes a man worthy of pardon,' can only answer humbly, 'I come.' It is the second time he has had cause to be ashamed during the few hours he has been in Purgatory, though on the former occasion Virgil himself was a sharer in the blame. It is not easy to decide what precisely the fault is. Plumptre, for example, sees in it 'two elements of the poet's nature: (1) an almost morbid sensitiveness to the criticism of others on what seems to them strange or startling in his acts or words; (2) the scorn of that criticism to which his higher nature, impersonated in Virgil, leads him.' This, however, goes on the assumption that the criticism here is adverse; and of this there is no sign. Taking the incident as it stands, it was not his vanity that was wounded, but his pride that was flattered, and that in a very peculiar way. The thing which astonished these laggard souls was not simply that a man who cast a shadow should visit the disembodied world; but rather that he should repent while still alive. They themselves had been utterly unable to part with sin till they were parting with life; and it is matter of amazement to see a man who can pause and make the great impossible surrender in midtime of his days. In short, Dante confesses that in the presence of these laggards he was attacked by the subtle temptation to be proud of his unique virtue in repenting so early:

I saw them gazing in astonishment At me alone, me alone, and the broken light.

• Mark the repetition: 'me alone, me alone' -- the only man they had ever seen who had repented before the end. Virgil rebukes this spiritual pride on two grounds. In the first place, it is a turning away from Reason: 'Come behind me, and let the people talk.' It is an irrational thing to be proud of one's repentance: no matter how early it come, it is all too late. In the second place, it is a great hindrance in 'pressing toward the mark': when a man begins to be proud of his repentance, the repentance itself comes to a standstill, for the simple reason the Pride, as St Gregory says, is 'the queen and mother of all vices.' (Carroll)

• 55: PENITENT AND PARDONING in their dying moments they have made an act of (a) contrition for their own sins, (b) forgiveness of the sins of others, and are therefore at peace both with God and man.


• 64: SAID ONE (SEE NOTE) Jacopo del Cassero (probably related to the Guido of Inf. xxviii. 77), a Guelf of Fano (situated in the mark of Ancona, between Romagna and the kingdom of Naples, which was ruled by Charles II. of Anjou) was Podestà of Bologna in 1296. Having incurred the wrath of Azzo VIII. of Este (for whom see Inf. xii. 110-112; cf. also Purg. xx. 80), whose designs on the city he had frustrated, he hoped to escape his vengeance by exchanging the office at Bologna for a similar one at Milan (1298). He was, however, murdered by Azzo's orders [among the assassins being Riccardo da Cammino, for whom see Par. ix. 49- 51] while on his way thither, at Oriaco, between Venice and Padua [the Paduans are called Antenori in v. 75, from their reputed founder Antenor, for whom see Inf. xxxii. 88, note; his escape to Italy after the fall of Troy, and his building of Padua are recorded by Virgil, AEn. i. 242 sqq.]. Oriaco is situated in a marshy country, while La Mira would have been easier of access to Jacopo in his flight (vv. 79-81). Hermann Oelsner (1899), Purgatorio 5.63-84

• 88: DA MONTEFELTRO (SEE NOTE) Dante wishes to show, from two contrasted sides, the final and absolute necessity of repentance, and that independently of the presence or absence of the Church's absolution. Guido, Buonconte’s father, appeared to have done everything that could be done to secure salvation -- had made his peace with the Church, joined a religious order, received a promise of pardon from Christ's own Vicar. The one thing he had not done was -- repent. . . On the other hand, the one thing his son Buonconte did was to repent. He had no time for all the ecclesiastical ritual of absolution with which the father was so careful to secure himself.

• Who did he pray to (101)? Follow link to Buonconte and full quote.


• Virgil notes that the prayers of Dante could aid these souls in the remission of their sins, V:36; and they request this prayers V:86.

• 132: well rested from the weary way: Characteristically, Dante depicts this solitary lady (for the other spirits mentioned are all male) as being the only inhabitant of Ante-Purgatory to show this self-effacing consideration for his health and convenience. She appears to have had no friend or relation left on earth who could be asked to pray for her.

• 133: that am called Piety: (La Pia): Pia dei Tolomei, daughter of a Sienese family, is said to have married Nello, or Paganello, dei Pannocchieschi, a Guelf leader, lord (among other castles) of the Castello della Pietra in the Maremma. Whether through jealousy or because he wanted to marry a richer heiress, Nello took her away to Pietra and there (in 1295) murdered her - some say by exposing her to the unhealthy air of the place (see xxix. 48 and Glossary); others, by throwing her from the castle window down a precipice; others say simply, "so secretly that nobody ever knew how." Since Dante classes her among the victims of sudden and unprepared death, he probably discounts the first of these theories.


• 1. 135: who plighted troth to me: she emphasizes the solemnity of the bonds uniting her to her murderous husband: she was first troth-plight and afterwards married to him. (Betrothal was a contract binding in law and in religion, which pledged the parties to one another and could not be dissolved without a formal dispensation. After a longer or shorter period, during which neither party was free to marry elsewhere, the marriage was celebrated and could be consummated.)

La Pia


• CANTO VI• Terrace 2: The Late-repentant• 22: Line 22 Pierre de la Brosse was surgeon and afterwards

chamberlain of King Philip III. of France. On the sudden death, in 1276, of Louis, Philip's son by his first wife, and heir to the throne, his second wife, Mary of Brabant, was suspected of having poisoned him, so that her own son might succeed. Among her accusers was Pierre de la Brosse. She determined to poison all minds against him and bring about his downfall. According to popular tradition she accused him of having made an attempt on her honour; but as Pierre was eventually (in 1278) hanged on a charge of treasonable correspondence with Philip's enemy, Alfonso X. of Castile, it seems more probable that she attaincd her end by causing these letters to be forged. (Hermann Oelsner (1899), Purgatorio 6.19-24)


• Line 28-29: Thou Didst Condemn Expressly Once (See Note) the reference is to Aen. vi. 376. Aeneas (see Glossary) on his visit to Hades meets the shade of the drowned steersman Palinurus, who begs to be conveyed across Styx, the passage of which is forbidden to those whose bodies are unburied. The Sibyl rebukes Palinurus with the words: "Cease to hope that prayer can alter the fixed decree of the gods.“ (Sayers, 115)

• Line 37-43: High Justice does Not Stoop (See Note) Virgil explains that (a) when one person assumes another's debt of restitution and pays it all off in one moment of burning charity, the divine Justice is not diminished, since all its demands are fulfilled: but that (b) in the case of Palinurus and Aeneas, who were heathens, neither the petitioner nor the mediator was qualified to utter that "prayer from a soul in grace" which alone is effective (v. Purg. iv. 133-5, xi. 33). The delay in Ante- Purgatory being purely penal, it can be remitted when satisfaction is made by another (see Introduction, pp. 63-4). (Sayers, 115)


• Line 71: Mantua (See Note) Virgil is doubtless about to quote the inscription on his tomb in Naples (see iii. 25 and note) which begins: "Mantua me genuit - Mantua gave me birth."

• Line 74: Sordello the troubadour was born at Goito near Mantua about 1200. After wandering from court to court of Italy, Provence, Spain, Poitou, Portugal, and various parts of France, he attached himself to Charles of Anjou (who thought highly of him) and spent most of his later life in Provence. All record of him is lost after 1269, but there is a tradition that he died a violent death. Later in the Comedy we are reminded of Sordello's intrigue with Cunizza (wife to Ricciardo di San Bonifazio and sister to Ezzelino III da Romano) whom Dante places in the Heaven of Venus (Para. ix. 25-36); the repentance of this pair of lovers seems to be of Dante's own imagining. Sordello wrote all his poems (some forty of which are preserved), not in his own language but in Provencal; incidentally there is nothing in them to support Browning's fanciful treatment of him (in Sordello) as a kind of fore-runner of Dante himself. One poem, the Lament of Blacatz, contains an impassioned and reproachful address to all the foremost princes of Europe, and it is presumably because of this that Dante chooses him, in the next canto (q.v.), to point out and name the various sovereigns in the Valley of the Rulers, besides echoing the Lament in the great passage of reproach which here follows. Sayers,115)


• Since Virgil (whether considered literally as an Ancient and a heathen, or allegorically as the Natural Man) cannot of himself know all the inhabitants of Mount Purgatory or explain its organization in detail, an interpreter is provided at each stage of the journey to supply the deficiency. Sordello performs this office in Ante-Purgatory, as does Statius later on in Purgatory Proper, and Matilda in the Earthly Paradise. In this canto we are still in the region of the Unshriven. (Sayers, 114)

• 97: German Albert: Albert I of Austria (1248-1308) elected Emperor in succession to his father, Rudolph of Hapsburg, in 1298. Dante's attitude to the Hapsburg emperor is ambivalent, according as he regards him (a) as King of the Germans - i.e. the feudal head of an invading and usurping race, or (b) as Roman Emperor - i.e. the divinely ordained guardian of law and civilization (see Inf. Introduction, p. 45). Compare his attitude to Julius Caesar (see Inf. xxxiv. Images under Judas, Brutus, Cassius) and to Pope Boniface VIII (see Inf. Introduction, p. 35, and Purg. xx. 86-90 and note).

• 100-3: let judgement fall, etc.: a prophetic allusion to the murder of Albert by his nephew John, eight years after the supposed date of Dante's vision. Thine heir: i.e. Henry VII of Luxemburg, the emperor on whom Dante built such high hopes (see Inf. Introduction, pp. 43-7).


• Line 106-11: Come, See The Capulets And Montagues (See Note) The two noble families of Verona, the Montagues and Capulets, whose quarrels have been made familiar to the English-speaking world by Romeo and Juliet: --

“Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word,By thee, old Capulet and Montague,Have thrice disturbed the quiet of our streets,And made Verona's ancient citizensCast by their grave beseeming ornaments,To wield old partisans, in hands as old,Cankered with peace, to part your cankered hate.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1867), Purgatorio 6.106

• Line 115: Most High Jove: Jehovah the name "Jove" (possibly on account of its resemblance to "Jehovah") is used more than once by Petrarch to accurate theologian, never hesitates to call the Second Person of the Trinity "God", without qualification, in whatever connexion (Sayers, 116-17).

• Line 125: Marcellus: a Roman consul, who supported Pompey against Julius Caesar, and was a violent opponent of the Empire. Dante means that any demagogue who defies the constitution is hailed by the populace as a hero.


• CANTO VII• Line 3: Who Are You ... Virgil is here plural; but Sordello's

excitement at hearing Virgil's name makes him forget to ask about Dante: and since the sun is behind the mountain (vi. 56-7), there is no betraying shadow to arouse his curiosity.

• Where Does Virgil Say He Dwells And How Does He Describe It? “ere to this mount,” etc.: i.e., before Christ's Harrowing of Hell. Previous to that, "no human soul had ever seen salvation" (Inf. iv. 63); the souls of the elect had gone, not to Purgatory, but to Limbo, from which Christ released them. . . Aen. vi. 673-5, where the Sibyl asks: "What region [of Hades], what place is the abode of Anchises?" and is answered: "Nulli certa. domus - none has any fixed abode: we inhabit the shady groves, the river-banks are our bed, the freshly- watered meadows our dwelling."

Sordello


• The Rule Of The Mountain The Rule of the Mountain: Throughout the Purgatory, the Sun is frequently taken as the symbol of God (e.g. in 1. 26 of this canto). Allegorically therefore, the meaning of the Rule of the Mountain, which prevents all ascent between sunset and sunrise, is that no progress can be made in the penitent life without the illumination of Divine Grace. When this is withheld, the soul can only mark time, if it does not lose ground, while waiting patiently for the renewal of the light. Nights in Purgatory thus correspond to those periods of spiritual darkness or "dryness" which so often perplex and distress the newly-converted. (Cf. John xi. 9-1o.) 9 Others were saying, “This is he,” still others were saying, “No, but he is like him.” He kept saying, “I am the one.”10 So they were saying to him, “How then were your eyes opened?”(Sayers, 122)

• Terrace 2: The Late-repentant - The Preoccupied Who Are They? The Preoccupied. The third class of the Late- Repentant is composed of those who neglected their spiritual duties through too much preoccupation with worldly cares. They occupy the highest and most beautiful place upon the Second Terrace, because their concern was, after all, for others rather than for themselves. As with the other inhabitants of Ante-Purgatory, the taint or habit of their former sin still clings to them: they continue to discuss and worry about the affairs of the family or the nation.

– Why Are They Here? Preoccupied with the affairs of state, however see Henry– How Are They Described? Still worried about the affairs of state


82: SALVE REGINA: THE ... HYMN TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN, BEGINNING: "HAIL, 0 QUEEN, MOTHER OF MERCY, OUR LIFE, OUR SWEETNESS AND OUR HOPE, HAIL! TO THEE WE CRY, THE EXILED CHILDREN OF EVE, TO THEE WE SIGH, WEEPING AND LAMENTING IN THIS VALLEY OF TEARS“

• 94: Emperor Rudolph: Rudolph of Hapsburg (see Glossary) mentioned in vi. 103 in connexion with his son Albert I. He is placed in this section of Ante-Purgatory probably on account of having been so preoccupied with affairs at home that he neglected the Empire to which he had been divinely called (vi. 103-6).

• line. 96: there's one shall come: i.e. Henry VII of Luxemburg (see Inf. Introduction, pp. 43-7)•

• line. 109: The Pest of France: Philip N of France, called "the Fair", for whom Dante never has a good word (see Inf. xix. 87: Purg. xx. 91, xxxii. 152: Para. xix. 118-2o). He was the son of Philip the Bold, and married Joan, the daughter of Henry the Fat. (See Glossary.)

• 112-13: the burly form is that of Peter III of Aragon, called "the Great", who married Manfred's daughter Constance 143). Hook- nose is Charles I of Anjou, whom Peter drove from the throne of Sicily. The two former enemies now "sing in concert".


• Into his estimate of these princes Sordello manages to weave a severe criticism of their descendants, and a curious suggestion concerning the doctrine of heredity, a subject in which Dante was greatly interested. Almost without exception the sons are declared inferior to their fathes. Ottocar in swaddling-clothes was better than his son Wenceslaus as a bearded man, consumed in lust and ease (Carroll, extra notes).

• Line 130-I: the king of simple life ... Harry of England: Henry III. Dante's estimate of him seems to be derived from Villani's Chronicle: "Of Richard [I, Coeur-de-Lion] was born Henry his son who reigned after him, but was a simple man and of good faith and of little worth. Of the said Henry was born the good King Edward [I], still reigning at the present time, who did great things" (v. 4) : and in another passage: "Henry, father of the good Edward, was a man of simple life, so that the barons held him for naught" (vii. 39). Dante can scarcely have thought that Henry neglected his soul in his care for his subjects, since he died, after 56 years of incompetent misgovernment, with a great reputation for piety: "In proportion as the king was held to be lacking in prudence in worldly actions, so he was the more distinguished for devotion to Our Lord; for it was his custom to hear three sung masses daily and, since this was not enough for him he assiduously attended private masses" (Matthew Paris). In his case, therefore, the fault which he is expiating in Ante-Purgatory may be the neglect of his kingly, through preoccupation with his religious, duties (since to pray when one ought to be working is as much a sin as to work when one ought to be praying). This may be the reason why he sits apart from the others, though the reason usually given is that England was outside the Empire. Henry is one of the rulers blamed by Sordello for sloth and cowardice in The Lament for Blacatz (Sayers,124).


• CANTO VIII• Terrace 2: The Late-repentant: The Preoccupied • The Serpent - The intrusion of the Serpent "such as gave Eve the bitter fruit, maybe",

into this Eden-like valley naturally raises the question whether, in the literal story, the souls in Ante-Purgatory are still liable to temptation and sin. It would appear that they are - not in the conscious will, which in the hour of death was firmly set towards God - but in the subconscious, the region of dreams, which is not yet subject to the will, so that a special intervention of Divine Grace is needed to protect it from assault. (The souls in Purgatory Proper are definitely beyond the reach of sin - see Canto xi. 22 and note.)

– The Angels Robes The green robes of the Angels are the colour of Hope - specifically the hope of salvation.

– Fiery Swords Their fiery swords remind us of the flaming sword of Gen. iii. 24, set at the gate of Eden after the expulsion of Adam and Eve;

– The Blunted Points but these are blunted at the point: "salvation, in these souls, is now working out the reversal of the Fall" U. D. Sinclair). The blunted points are usually taken to signify Mercy as opposed to Judgement; but it is, perhaps, rather that the contest with the Serpent is now hardly more than a fencing bout: the creature needs only to be routed and not slain, for sin "has retreated to its last stronghold" (J. S. Carroll), and is reduced to a mere fantasy, which can only trouble and not corrupt.(Saqyers, 130)


• The Three Stars (Faith - Hope - Love) When Virgil describes to Sordello his position in the afterlife (assigned to Limbo, the first circle of Hell), he says he resides among those who while "not clothed in the three holy virtues" did in fact follow the other virtues (7.34-6). These "other virtues" are the four cardinal virtues, also known as the moral or classical virtues: fortitude, temperance, justice, and prudence. Their place in medieval Christian thought, based on such classical authorities as Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero, was established by Ambrose and, later, Thomas Aquinas. The three holy (or theological virtues) are faith, hope, and charity. They were first listed as a group by the apostle Paul (1 Cor. 13:13). The stars seen in Purgatory are likely meant to symbolize the virtues: Dante initially sees four stars that illuminate Cato's face (1.22-39), and he now learns that their position in the sky has been taken by three other stars (8.88-93). * note

• 13 : Te lucis ante [terminum]: "Before the ending of the day": the compline hymn of St Ambrose, for protection against evil dreams and phantoms of the night (Creator of all things, before the end of light, we beg you to guard and protect us with your usual compassion. Let the dreams and fantasies of night retreat; repress our enemy lest our bodies be defiled. Grant this, almighty Father, through Jesus Christ the Lord who rules with you and the Holy Spirit forever.).

• Line 36: As Every Sense Is Vanquished by Excess: Dante Is Quoting From Aristotle, De Anima, ii. 12: "The excess of the sensibles corrupts the senses": i.e. a too strong light dazzles, a too loud noise deafens, a too concentrated scent paralyses the sense of smell, or a too pungent taste, the palate

• Line 37: From Mary's Bosom:The Help And Protection Of The Queen Of Heaven Were Invoked Previously In The Salve Regina.

note


• Line 54: Worthy Judge Nino: See Note. Nino (Ugolino) Visconti, Justiciary of Gallura in Sardinia, was on the mother's side a grandson of Count Ugolino della Gherardesca (see Inf xxxiii. 13 and note), and his rival in the leadership of the Guelfs in Pisa, to which city Sardinia at that time (1288) belonged. After the Ghibellines under Ruggieri degli Ubaldini had driven him from Pisa and assumed power in the city, Nino became head of the Tuscan Guelf league against Pisa, to which he returned in 1293. Later he went to Sardinia to punish Fra Gomita, his vicar in Sardinia, for bribery and corruption (see Inf. xxii. 81 and note). He appears to have been personally known to Dante, whom he may have met when visiting Florence from time to time between 1288 and 1293 on business connected with the Guelf league, if he was not actually his companion in arms at Caprona (see Inf. xxi. 9S and note). He died in 1296 in Sardinia. The old commentators speak of him as a man of noble spirit, stout, courageous, and well-bred (Sayers,131).

• 71: my Giovanna: Nino's daughter by Beatrice d'Este. In 1300 (see 11. 73 sqq.), four years after Nino's death, Beatrice was remarried to Galeazzo Visconti of Milan. Nino's "measured anger", with which Dante sympathizes, at this infidelity to the dead appears to us scarcely justified; but it must be remembered that the medieval Church had no great liking for second marriages.

• Line 74: Weeds Of White: See Note. the widow's dress — black robe with white veil — such as we see still used in the "deuil blanc" portrait of Mary Queen of Scots. The suggestion in 1. 75, that Beatrice will soon repent her marriage, refers to the misfortunes which overtook the Visconti family from 1302 onwards.

note


• Line 104: The Heavenly Falcons: The Angels • Line 120: That Love Which Here We Purify: See Note

Conrad implies that it was absorption in family pride and family affection which placed him among the Preoccupied.

• Line 130-131: The Great Lord Of Misrule: Probably Satan; Possibly Either Pope Boniface Viii Or The Emperor.

• Dante has said that he has never visited Conrad's domain (Lunigiana) but knows the generosity of the Malaspina family by repute. Conrad replies that he will before long know it by experience (thus prophesying Dante's coining exile and dependence on the hospitality of his patrons).


• CANTO IX

• Line 51: Peter's Gate there is an Angel he is usually taken as representing the ideal Confessor, or the ideal Priesthood, and so, in the immediate context, he is; but in a wider sense he might be called, I think, the Angel of the Church. He wears the ashen garments of penitence, not only because the good confessor must himself be a penitent, but because the Church, so long as she sojourns in Time, must sojourn in sorrow and tribulation; he bears "the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God"; and he is invested with the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, which were given to Peter as the Church's authority to bind or unloose the bonds of sin. The Gate itself is the "Peter's Gate" mentioned in Inf. i. 134: and we may note that the soul which is within the Gate and set on the Way of Purgation is already within "the Kingdom of Heaven.(Sayers,139)“

• Dante's Dream Of The Eagle he dreams that he is walking, like Ganymede, upon Mount Ida, and, like Ganymede, is caught up to heaven by an eagle. The dream is induced by a reality (Dante's dream-psychology is always plausible) : he has actually been carried up the face of the Mountain by St Lucy, and this movement both induces and fulfils the dream which symbolizes it. See 2nd point below.

• Ganymede Ganymede was the son of Tros, ancestor of Aeneas and mythical founder of Troy. Enamoured of his beauty, Jove sent the divine eagle to fetch him one day as he was hunting with his friends upon Mount Ida, overlooking Troy, and Ganymede was carried away to Olympus to become cupbearer to the gods. The legend thus provides two threads of symbolism. (1) Primarily, it is a story in which God takes the initiative, moved by love for a human being, and carries the beloved away to be with Himself. (We need not let any prejudices about Olympian morality interfere with our, or Dante's, allegorizing of the myths.) (2) Secondly, throughout the Comedy, the Eagle always symbolizes the true Empire and, in particular, the Justice of the Empire - a concept which we shall see fully elaborated in the Paradiso, in the Heaven of Jupiter (Para. xviii. xix. xx). To this true Empire ("The Rome where Christ Himself is a Roman", Para. xxxii. jot) the souls of men are brought by the purgatorial path, which is the fulfilling of Justice. (See Introduction, pp. 54 sqq.) Ganymede the Trojan, of the line that founded Rome, is thus the type of human society, taken up into the City of God, here and hereafter. (Sayers, 138-9)


• CANTO IX• old Adam's nature: Dante was still wearing his earthly body, which needed sleep.

Note that it is only in Purgatory, which is situated in time, that Dante sleeps at all; not in Hell or Heaven, which are eternal states.

• Line.13 : the sad swallow: Tereus, King of Thrace, the husband of Procne, violated her sister Philomena and cut out her tongue, so that she should not betray his crime. Philomena, however, by means of a piece of tapestry, denounced him to Procne who, in revenge, killed her son Itys and with Philomena's help served up his flesh to Tereus. When Tereus, discovering this, tried to kill both sisters, the gods changed all three into birds - Tereus into a hoopoe, and the two sisters into a swallow and a nightingale respectively. (Ovid, Metam. vi. 424-140

• Line 55: Lucy : St Lucy, it will be remembered, was the second of the "Three Blessed Ladies" who interested themselves in Dante's welfare. It was she who was sent by the Blessed Virgin to call Beatrice's attention to Dante's peril in the Dark Wood (Inf. ii. 97 sqq.). As the saint who looks after people's eyesight, she figures as a symbol of illuminating grace, and is thus fitly typified in the dream by the eagle which can, traditionally, bear to look on the sun with naked eyes.

• In the allegory, the intervention of Lucy means, I think, that in entering actively upon the way of Penitence and Purgation the soul is dependent upon God's grace. It is too great a leap for it to make by its natural light and natural powers, though these will, of course, accompany and assist it. Thus Lucy is sent from Heaven to carry Dante up, and Virgil only "comes behind(Sayers)".

Achilles note


• Line 76: The Three Steps: These Are The Three Parts Of Penitence These are the three parts of Penitence: (I) Confession, (2) Contrition, and (3) Satisfaction. (See Introduction, p. 56.) The first is of polished white marble: the penitent looks into his heart, sees himself as he is, recognizes his sinfulness, and so admits and confesses it. The second is black, the colour of mourning, and cracked in the figure of the cross: "A broken and contrite heart, O God, shalt thou not despise" (Ps. li. 17, Vulg. i. 19). The third is of porphyry redder than blood: the colour symbolizes not only the penitent's pouring out his own life and love in restitution for sin, but also the Blood of Christ's "oblation of Himself once offered, to be a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world" (Book of Common Prayer), with which the penitent's satisfaction must unite itself in order to be complete.

• The characters in the Gospel history which have been regarded by Christian writers as representative of these three stages are -- of the first (candid confession) the penitent thief on the cross; of the second (contrition) Peter in the judgement hall; of the third (ardent love) Mary Magdalene at the banquet (Tozer).

• The Threshold of adamant is the foundation on which the Church is built: in her human aspect, the Rock which is Peter; in her Divine aspect, the Cornerstone which is Christ.

• The Angel At The Gate• The Seven P's: The "P" Stands For Peccatum = Sin Seven Capital Sins Pride • Envy

• Wrath • Sloth • Avarice • Gluttony • Lust


• The Keys• Golden Key Silver Key • These are the two parts of absolution: The Golden Key is the Divine

authority given to the Church to remit sin; it is "the costlier" because it was bought at the price of God's Passion and Death. The Silver Key is the unloosening of the hard entanglement of sin in the human heart: and this needs great skill on the part of the Church and her priesthood when administering the sacrament of Penance. Both keys must function smoothly for a valid absolution: the use of the golden key without the silver lands you exactly where it landed Guido da Montefeltro (Inf. xxvii. 67 sqq.): the silver without the golden (i.e. remorse for sin without seeking reconciliation) leads only to despair and the Gorgon at the Gates of Dis. (Inf. ix.)


Line 111: upon my breast three times I beat: in making his confession to a priest the penitent knocks three times upon his breast, saying that he has sinned in thought, word, and deed "by my fault (knock), by my own fault (knock), by my own most grievous fault (knock) - meâ culpâ, meâ culpâ, meâ maximâ culpâ.“

Line 131: When he opens the Gate, he tells them that he who looks back must return outside, the allusion being to many solemn warnings of Scripture against the backward look. True penitence is a complete and final break with the past; and 'no man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God' (Luke ix. 62; Heb. vi. 4-6, etc.). The warning, of course, cannot be addressed to souls in Purgatory, since there is no doubt of the genuineness of their repentance, and their state of grace is secure: Dante is really thinking of himself and of souls still subject to the imperfect and delusive repentances of this earthly life (John S. Carroll (1904), Purgatorio 9.130-132).

Luke 9:62 (NASB95)62 But Jesus said to him, “No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Hebrews 6:4-6 (NASB95)4 For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit,5 and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come,6 and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.

THE DIVINE COMEDY: PURGATORY• Line 135: John S.

• When 'the holy gate' swung upon its hinges, Dante tells us that it roared more shrilly than the gates of the public treasury of Rome on the Tarpeian hill when 'the good Metellus' vainly endeavoured to defend it from Caesar (Lucan's Pharsalia, iii. 153- 157, 167, 168). He explains this harsh grating sound by the statement that 'the evil love of souls disuses' the door; in other words, penitents are so few that the Gate is seldom opened, and the hinges grow rusty and shrill: 'strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.' It is probably for the same reason that when, in a little, he reaches the First Terrace, he finds it, far as his eye could see, to right and left, 'more solitary than roads through deserts' (Matt. vii. 14; Purg. x. 21).

• At 'the first thunder' of the disused hinges (some take 'al primo tuono' to mean 'to the first tone' of the music within it, but wrongly. Dante is yet outside the Gate. At the first grating sound of the hinges he turned intently to it. As it opened there came through to him the sound of sweet music), he turned silenty toward it, and through the opening Gate heard a burst of sweetest music, as when one listens at a cathedral door, 'when people singing with the organ stand.' Sometimes he catches the words, and sometimes they are lost in the organ-music, but he recognizes that the hymn is the Te Deum laudamus. This hymn had a peculiar appropriateness according to the tradition that it was composed by St. Ambrose on the occasion of St. Augustine's conversion. St. Augustine's own words about the power which the music he heard in the Church at Milan had over him, may have been in the poet's mind: 'O how I wept in Thy hymns and canticles, deeply touched by the voices of Thy Church, sweetly resounding! Those voices flowed into my ears, and the truth distilled into my heart, and thence the affection of my devotion broke forth, and tears ran down, and happy was I therein' (Confessions, ix. 6). Dante does not say who were the singers. We naturally think of the Angels, in fulfilment of the saying that 'there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.' But it is possible that the singers are the souls upon the Mountain chanting the Te Deum in joy that a sinner has begun his purgatorial discipline, just as afterwards we find them singing the Gloria in excelsis when a penitent has fulfilled it, and is ready to ascend to Paradise (Purg. xx. 136). It is obvious that the music here stands in intentional contrast to the song of Casella down on the shore: the one is a hindrance to the cleansing of the soul; the other draws the penitent joyfully through the open door, eager to begin his purifying pain (Purg. i. 106-133. The contrast to the Inferno [iii. 103-105] is more obvious. Here there ascends praise to God for salvation; there He is cursed by the lost as the author of their misery). The period of what Aquinas calls 'deliberation' is over, the detention due to the semi-paralysis of the will through evil habit (Summa, i-ii. q. cxiii, a. 7); and 'the poets cross the boundary-line which separates regret from repentance, aspiration from energy, mere desire from consecrated resolve.' Dante hears the clanging of the gate as it closes behind him, but there is no turning back; his repentance is not to be repented of, and he sets himself resolutely to the purifying of his soul, a task at once of joy and pain (Carroll (1904), Purgatorio 9.133-145).

Revolutions: Hoffecker

• Leonardo Bruni translated Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, and in his introduction depicted Aristotle as a wealthy man engaged in public affairs and skilled in eloquence. This was the ideal citizen for a place like Florence.

• Pompanatus looked for natural causes to miracles, and stated that philosophy could not prove the immortality of the soul.

• Ficino, employed by the Medici’s, extensively translated Plato, and advocated a contemplative, ascetic, life. His defense for the soul comes from Plato, Plotinus, Augustine and Aquinas.

• Wycliffe (1329-84) would be considered Medieval in thought though living in the Renaissance.

• The thinking in the Renaissance was ecletic.

Addendum: Terza Rima

• • One of the most important aesthetic features of Dante’s Divine Comedy receives little discussion among readers

of the poem’s English translations: Dante’s poetic form, the terza rima, which scholars believe him to have invented for The Comedy. Terza rima utilizes three-line stanzas, which combine iambic meter with a propulsive rhyme scheme. Within each stanza, the first and third lines rhyme, the middle line having a different end sound; the end sound of this middle line then rhymes with the first and third lines of the next stanza. The rhyme scheme thus runs aba bcb cdc ded efe, and so forth. Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind” (1820) instances one of the finest uses of terza rima in an English-language poem:

• • O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,

Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves deadAre driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

• Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

• Because this rhyme scheme could propagate itself forever, a terza rima poem typically ends with a stanza of only one line, which rhymes with the middle line of the second to last stanza. We see this type of close in Canto XXXIII of Inferno:

• • For with Romagna’s worst spirit I have found

One of you—already, for deeds he was guilty of,Bathed in Cocytus: in soul now underground

• Who in body still appears alive, above.

Addendum: Terza Rima

• The English language possesses a vocabulary more massive than that of Italian: because English is descended more or less equally from three different languages (Latin, Anglo-Saxon, and medieval French), it contains many synonyms. The word “kingly,” for instance, descends from Anglo-Saxon, while “regal” comes from Latin and “royal” comes from French. Despite this abundance of words, English provides far fewer possibilities for rhyme than Italian, which stems much more directly from Latin, a language that contains regimented systems for noun and verb endings. Nouns in Italian are thus much more likely to rhyme with one another than nouns in English; the same holds true for verbs.

• • As a result, writing terza rima stanzas, which depend so heavily on available rhymes, proves punishingly difficult in English. To circumvent

this difficulty, most translators of The Divine Comedy sidestep the terza rima form, choosing to translate either in prose or unrhymed blank verse. Some translators utilize rhyme, but among recent translations, only Robert Pinsky’s makes an attempt to preserve Dante’s verse form. In order to do so, Pinsky makes liberal use of half-rhymes (“near”/“fire,” “alive”/“move”), and often departs widely from Dante’s original lines—most of his cantos contain fewer lines than Dante’s.

• • For these reasons, a discussion of terza rima does not always seem relevant for English-language readers. Nevertheless, an analysis of

Dante’s reasons for using terza rima helps us to understand better both his style and his themes, two elements that figure strongly in English readers’ appreciation of the poem.

• • Dante’s use of terza rima underscores the intricate connections among story, form, and theme in Inferno, an unprecedented and

unmatched unity of parts that is probably Dante’s greatest poetic achievement. First, as the rhyme scheme passes new rhymes from one stanza to the next, it creates a feeling of effortless forward motion. This dynamic matches the endless advance of Dante and Virgil as they descend into Hell, an advance that drives the plot. Second, terza rima, with its three-line stanzas, reflects other groupings of threes found throughout Dante’s poem, all of which contribute to a complex symbolism. The number three plays an important role in Catholic theology because of the triune God, made up of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. In Inferno, Dante encounters three beasts in the first canto; three holy women send Virgil to guide him; Satan has three heads and chews on three sinners. By using terza rima, Dante makes a thematic element into a structural building block as well. Terza rima also serves to link the poem’s smaller formal structure to its larger geometry, for the three-line stanzas mirror the three-pronged nature of the entire Divine Comedy, which comprises Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. Furthermore, each of these parts contains its own three sections: in Inferno, for instance, these are the Ante-Inferno, Upper Hell, and Lower Hell. Purgatorio and Paradiso each have thirty-three cantos; although Inferno has thirty-four, its first canto acts as a general prologue to The Comedy as a whole. Hell, in its entirety, divides into nine circles—three times three. Many more threesomes exist as well, illuminating only a small part of the intricacies of Dante’s structural plan.

• •

Cato• John S. Carroll (1904), Purgatorio 1.28-69• Yet even from the Northern world thus widowed of the natural virtues, Dante found one on whose

face the four stars shone with the brightness of the sun. Turning a little to the North he saw an old man with long white beard, and so venerable in his look that no father could be more worthy to receive reverence from a son. (In his description of him as a man of venerable age and appearance, Dante follows Lucan [Pharsalia ii. 372-376]. His actual age at death was forty-nine.) It is the famous Cato of Utica, the Warder of the Mount, or rather of the Ante-Purgatory at its base, and one of the most mysterious figures in the whole poem. When the great civil war broke out in B.C. between Caesar and Pompey, Cato fought on the side of the latter. On the defeat of Scipio at the battle of Thapsus in 46, he resolved to commit suicide rather than fall into the hands of the conqueror and survive to witness what he regarded as the enslavement of his country. Before stabbing himself he spent the greater part of the night in reading over more than once Plato's discussion of the immortality of the soul in the Phaedo -- a dialogue, however, which strongly condemns suicide (Phaedo, 61, 62; Socrates argues that the philosopher 'will be willing to die, though he will not take his own life.' To this Cebes objects with the question why, ' when a man is better dead'? 'There is a doctrine,' says Socrates, 'whispered in secret that man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door of his prison and run away; this is a great mystery which I do not quite understand. Yet I too believe that the gods are our guardians, and that we are a possession of theirs' [Jowett's Translation].) The mystery is how such a man is set here as Guardian of the Mount on which only Christian souls are purified. As an enemy of Caesar, we might almost expect to find him in the Ninth Circle of the Inferno with Brutus and Cassius. Or, as a suicide we might look for him among the Violent against Themselves. Even if, as some hold, no pagan is punished in this class on the ground that heathen morality did not regard suicide as sinful, why, in that case, did not Dante set him in the Limbo of Virtuous Heathen, in company with Virgil and Caesar, and his own wife Marcia?

Cato• From line 90, it seems that this was actually his original place in the other world; for the words,

'when I came forth thence,' can only refer to the Limbo 'beyond the evil river,' where his wife still was. We must suppose then that Cato, dying in 46 B.C., remained for about eighty years in Limbo, and that he was rescued along with the Old Testament saints when Christ 'descended into Hell' (Inf. iv. 55-61), although no hint of this is elsewhere given. It shows the extra-ordinary reverence in which Dante held him. He accepted the view of his character taken by Cicero, Lucan, and virtually the whole world of antiquity. Virgil makes him Lawgiver to the holy dead in Elysium, and it was probably this which suggested to Dante his function here on Mount Purgatory (Cicero's De Officiis, i. 31; Lucan's Pharsalia, ii. 380-391. The reference in Virgil is in Aen. viii. 670: “Secretosque pios; his dantem jura Catonem.”). His admiration of him runs through many passages in his prose works. In the De Monarchia (ii. 5), he calls him 'the severest champion of true liberty,' and says that in order to 'kindle in the world the passionate love of liberty, he showed how dear was liberty, choosing to pass out of life a free man, rather than without liberty to abide in life.' 'O most sacred heart of Cato,' he exclaims in the Convito, 'who will presume to speak of thee? Certainly nothing greater than silence can be said of thee'; and in another passage he rises into what seems to us an extraordinary extravagance of veneration: 'What earthly man was more worthy to symbolize God than Cato? Certainly none' (Conv. iv. 5; 28). His love of virtue and freedom made him in Dante's eyes the one man worthy to act as Guardian of that Mountain on which the soul, freed from the prison of the flesh, shook off the tyrannies of sin and sought 'the liberty of the glory of the children of God.' Hence Virgil commends Dante to Cato as a kindred soul:

Cato• 'Now may it please thee to vouchsafe his coming; He goes in search

of Liberty, which is so dear, As knoweth he who life for her refuses. Thou knowest it; since, for her, to thee not bitter Was death in Utica, where thou didst leave The vesture which at the great day will be so bright.' (i. 70-75) (In contrast, it is curious to read Mommsen's contemptuous characterization of Cato: 'A man of the best intentions and of rare devotedness, and yet one of the most Quixotic and one of the most cheerless phenomena in this age so abounding in political caricatures. Honourable and steadfast, earnest in purpose and action, full of attachment to his country and to its hereditary constituation but dull in intellect and sensuosly as well as morally destitute of passion, he might certainly have made a tolerable state-accountant.' He calls him 'an unimpassioned pedant,' 'a strange caricature of his ancestor' the old Cato, walking about 'the sinful capital as a model burgess and mirror of virtue' [History of Rome, iv. 454, English Translation].)

Cato• Look at it as we may, however, Cato remains one of the most mysterious figures in the poem, an anomaly which has never been quite

satisfactorily explained. Although rescued with the Old Testament saints, he is not admitted with them to the joy of Paradise. He is not even set on a level with the souls who arrive to purify themselves in his 'seven kingdoms,' as the Seven Terraces are called. Generation after generation his doom is to see them come and pass upward to the eternal freedom, while he, as Guardian of the Mount, remains a prisoner at the foot until the Judgment Day. It is not easy to say what his doom will then be. The words, 'the vesture which at the great day will be so bright,' imply that the body which he had cast off by suicide will be restored in some glorified form. But no hint is given as to whether this involves his ascension to Paradise, to take his place there with Trajan and Rhipeus in a Diviner liberty than that for which he died on earth. It does not necessarily mean more than his return to the Limbo whence he came, to be there, perhaps, the most glorious form in the hemisphere of light within which Dante saw 'honourable people,' the great and noble souls of the ancient pagan world (Inf. iv. 67-72).

• A further difficulty springs from the apparently ambiguous sense in which the word liberty is used. To say that the man who flung life away for the sake of liberty is worthy to guard the Mount of Liberty, explains nothing unless 'liberty' means the same thing in the two cases. This, however, is not evident upon the surface. When, for example, in the passage quoted above Virgil commends Dante to Cato because he too is a seeker for liberty, it certainly seems that 'liberty' is being used with a double meaning. Cato sought liberty in the political sense -- from the tyranny of Caesar; whereas Dante was seeking moral liberty -- deliverance from the tyranny of sin within the soul. The difficulty, however, is more apparent than real. We must not assume too readily that Dante drew our modern sharp line of distinction between civil and moral liberty. On the contrary, it is one of the most striking characteristics of the Purgatorio that these two liberties are throughout most intimately and vitally blended together. As we shall see, the great climb up the Mountain simply brings the race back to the Garden of Eden, the moral state from which it fell. This original moral state consists of the natural virtues, Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Fortitude -- the four stars which Dante saw shining full on Cato's face. But it is just these natural virtues without which political freedom cannot exist; and therefore Dante identifies the Earthly Paradise on the Mountain-top with the ideal Empire -- the blessedness and freedom of this present life under the government of an ideal Emperor, who takes the natural virtues for his law (De Mon. iii. 16). What Dante does then is simply this. He takes the man on whose face the four stars of the natural virtues shine with clearest light, the man who, for the sake of such an ideal of free and just government, parted with life itself, and makes him the Guardian of the Mount which must be climbed before that ideal can be reached. When Virgil therefore says that Dante was, like Cato, a seeker of liberty, he is drawing no distinction between civil and moral liberty. Dante recognized none; on the contrary, the fundamental idea of the Purgatorio is that only by the regaining of the natural virtues can the lost Eden be restored to the human race, the Earthly Paradise of righteous government, which secures to all men freedom and peace.

Divine Comedy: Hell• CANTO XXVII• Guido Da Montefeltro: See Note In The Glossary & this page.

Guido was an influential and intelligent Ghibelline soldier who had resigned to become a Franciscan monk and save his soul. At the Pope's insistence, he got involved in a dispute between the reigning Pope, Boniface VIII, and another powerful family who had retreated to a large castle. Guido negotiated and persuaded the family to leave the castle to accept a fair treaty being offered by the Pope.They did. The Pope promptly destroyed the castle (Barrons).

• Romagnola: A Province In Italy• 7: The Sicillian Bull Dante compares this with Phalaris’ bronze bull

of torture. The bull would be heated up and the cries of the victim inside would be heard as the bellowing of the bull. Thus now the sinner’s painful words seem like the flame speaks them (PM).

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Don’t Panic This is a help, not a requirement For Dante read Sayers book, comments, perhaps . This follows the same format as