Purgatorio: Dante's Divine Comedy PDF

# Purgatorio - Purgatorio ("Purgatory" in English) is the second section of the Divine Comedy, which is an epic poem written by the great Italian poet, Dante. - It follows after Inferno, and tells the story of his climb up Mount Purgatory, accompanied by another Italian poet by the name of Virgil,...

# Purgatorio - Purgatorio ("Purgatory" in English) is the second section of the Divine Comedy, which is an epic poem written by the great Italian poet, Dante. - It follows after Inferno, and tells the story of his climb up Mount Purgatory, accompanied by another Italian poet by the name of Virgil, who serves as his guide. - The climb is supposed to teach him lessons about Christian life and God's love, and purify him of his sins before continuing on his journey to God. - Allegorically, the Purgatorio represents the penitent Christian life. - Purgatory in the poem is depicted as a mountain in the Southern Hemisphere, consisting of: - A bottom section (Ante-Purgatory), - Seven levels of suffering and spiritual growth (associated with the seven deadly sins), - Finally, the Earthly Paradise at the top. - The poem outlines a theory that all sins arise from love. Either: - Perverted love directed towards others' harm, - Deficient love, - The disordered or excessive love of good things. - The structure of the Purgatorio Mountain: - The Earthly Paradise - Terrace 7: The Lustful - Terrace 6: The Gluttonous - Terrace 5: The Covetous - Terrace 4: The Slothful - Terrace 3: The Wrathful - Terrace 2: The Envious - Terrace 1: The Proud - Ante-Purgatory: The Late Repentant - Ante-Purgatory: The Excommunicate ## Ante-Purgatory ### Shore of the island (Cantos I - II) - At the shores of Purgatory, Dante and Virgil meet Cato, a pagan who has been placed by God as the general guardian of the approach to the mountain. - The Purgatorio demonstrates the medieval knowledge of a spherical Earth, with Dante referencing: - The different stars visible in the Southern Hemisphere, - The altered position of the sun, - The various timezones of the Earth. - The poets begin to climb in the early hours of morning. - On the lower slopes (designated as "Ante-Purgatory" by commentators), Dante and Virgil encounter two main categories of souls whose penitent Christian life was delayed or deficient: - The excommunicate - The late repentant ## The Excommunicate - The excommunicates are detained at the base of the cliff for a period thirty times as long as their period of contumacy. - The excommunicate include Manfred of Sicily. - Manfred explains that prayer from those currently alive and in the grace of God may reduce the amount of time a soul spends in purgatory. - The meeting with Manfred is over by about 9 AM (Canto III). ## The Late Repentant - Includes: - Those too lazy or too preoccupied to repent (The Indolent) - Those who repented at the last minute without formally receiving last rites, as a result of violent deaths - The Negligent Rulers. These souls will be admitted to Purgatory thanks to their genuine repentance, but must wait outside for an amount of time equal to their lives on earth. - Belacqua, Pia de' Tolomei of Siena, Sordello. - RULE OF MOUNTAIN: after sunset souls are incapable of climbing any further. - Dante and his companions stop for the night in the beautiful Valley of the Princes where they meet the negligent rulers (Cantos VII and VIII). - Rudolph, Ottokar, Philip the Bold, and Henry III. - That following evening, Dante falls asleep and wakes up at the gates of Purgatory Proper, after having a dream that an eagle carried him during the night. - The gate has three steps: - Polished white (purity) - Black (the colour of mourning) - Red (the blood of Christ & the restoration of true life) - The gate of Purgatory, Peter's Gate, is guarded by an angel who uses the point of his sword to draw the letter "P" (peccatum) seven times on Dante's forehead, bidding him "take heed that thou wash / These wounds, when thou shalt be within.” - The angel uses two keys, silver (remorse) and gold (reconciliation) to open the gate - both are necessary for redemption and salvation. ## Seven Terraces - After passing through the gate of Purgatory proper, Virgil guides the pilgrim Dante through the mountain's seven terraces. - These correspond to the seven deadly sins or "seven roots of sinfulness": - Pride, - Envy, - Wrath, - Sloth, - Avarice (and Prodigality), - Gluttony, - Lust - Each terrace purges a particular sin in an appropriate manner. ## Terrace 1: The Proud (Pride) - This terrace that the poets enter first is full of those that were prideful during their earthly lives. - The walls of the terrace have sculptures with examples of humility, which is the opposite of pride. - The prayer for this terrace is an expanded version of the Lord's Prayer. - The prideful never get a chance to see these sculptures, since their backs are arched due to the huge weights they must carry using their backs as their sins get purged. - Omberto Aldobrandeschi, Oderisi of Gubbio, Provenzano Salvani - Dante bends over to converse with the souls and learns lessons from them. - After his conversations with the proud, Dante notes further sculptures on the pavement below, this time illustrating pride itself. The sculptures show: - Satan (Lucifer), - The building of the Tower of Babel, - King Saul, - Niobe, - Arachne, - King Rehoboam, - and others. - When Dante reaches the exit of the terrace, an angel removes the first “P” from his forehead, and the poets move on to the 2nd terrace. ## Terrace 2: The Envious (Envy) - This terrace is filled with the souls of envious penitents. - Their earthly lives were spent desiring what made other people happy to the point they would even harm them in order to deprive them of this. - Soon as they enter the terrace, they hear voices that speak examples of generosity, which is the opposite of envy, and later on, they also hear the voices speak examples of envy. - Guido del Duca, Aglauros, Cain - The penitents wear grey cloaks and cannot see where they are going because their eyes have been closed and sewn with iron wire. - As they leave the terrace, the second "P" is removed. ## Terrace 3: The Wrathful (Wrath) - The poets enter the third terrace, which is filled with souls of wrathful penitents. - Dante begins to have visions of gentleness, which is an example of the opposite virtue of wrath. - The souls of the wrathful walk around in acrid smoke. - The souls in this part of the poem do not shout out any examples, but Dante does have a conversation with Marco Lombardo about free will. Dante also sees visions with examples of wrath, such as: - Procne, - Haman - Lavinia. - When they meet an angel, another “P” is removed and Dante and Virgil exit the terrace. - The prayer for this terrace is the Agnus Dei. ## Terrace 4: The Slothful (Sloth) - On the fourth terrace we find souls whose sin was that of deficient love – that is, sloth or acedia. - Since they had failed in life to act in pursuit of love, here they are engaged in ceaseless activity. - The examples of sloth and of zeal, its opposite virtue, are called out by these souls as they run around the terrace. - A scene from the life of the Virgin outlined in this terrace is the Visitation, with Mary going "in haste" to visit her cousin Elizabeth. - Since the formerly slothful are now too busy to converse at length, this section of the poem is a short one. - Dante's second night's sleep occurs while the poets are on this terrace, and Dante dreams shortly before Tuesday's dawn of a Siren, symbol of disordered or excessive love represented by greed, gluttony and lust. - The dream ends in the light of the sun, and the two poets climb toward the fifth terrace. ## Terrace 5: The Avaricious (Avarice) - Dante and Vergil enter the terrace of the Avaricious and Prodigal. - Their punishment is to lie on the floor, face down, with their hands and feet bound together. - The souls are being punished and purged for desiring material goods with extravagance, greed, or ambition. - Their prayer is Adhaesit pavimento anima mea, taken from Psalm 119:25 ("My soul cleaveth unto the dust: quicken thou me according to thy word"). - As the poets travel through the terrace, it is shaken by a mysterious tremor, but Dante does not ask Virgil about it, even though he is curious. - They run into the Roman, Statius, and he explains the mysterious tremor to Dante: it happens when a soul is ready to move on from purgatory, and he, Statius, was the soul that caused the tremor. - He joins them on their journey. - It also turns out that Statius is an admirer of Virgil's work. - The next angel they run into removes the fifth "P" from Dante's forehead. ## Terrace 6: The Gluttonous (Gluttony) - The next terrace contains the souls of the gluttonous, and the poets witness their painful punishment: they experience excruciating hunger and thirst while there are plenty of trees with fruit around them. - The souls experience this because they can never reach the trees. - The voices in the trees give examples of temperance, which is the opposite of gluttony. - Dante runs into his friend Forese Donati and his predecessor Bonagiunta Orbicciani (who turns out to be poetic and has nothing but kind words for one of Dante's poems, "La Vita Nuova”). - The prayer for this terrace is Labia mea Domine (Psalm 51:15: "O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise" - As the three poets exit the sixth terrace, an Angel removes the sixth "P". ## Terrace 7: The Lustful (Lust) - In the terrace of the lustful, the penitent souls must run through a great wall of flames. - As they run through it, they call out examples of chastity, which is the opposite of lust. - Everyone must run through the wall before they leave, including Dante. - Dante is hesitant because he is afraid. - Virgil tells him that Beatrice, the love of his life, is waiting for him in the Earthly Paradise. - This is enough to convince Dante, who goes through the flames. - They all fall asleep shortly after that and in the morning, they all proceed to the Earthly Paradise and the final "P" on Dante's forehead is removed. ## The Earthly Paradise - At the summit of Mount Purgatory is the Earthly Paradise or Garden of Eden. - Allegorically, it represents the state of innocence that existed before Adam and Eve fell from grace - the state which Dante's journey up Mount Purgatory has been recapturing. - Here Dante meets Matilda. - Matilda clearly prepares Dante for his meeting with Beatrice, the woman to whom (historically) Dante dedicated his previous poetry, the woman at whose request (in the story) Virgil was commissioned to bring Dante on his journey, and the woman who (allegorically) symbolizes the path to God (Canto XXVIII). - With Matilda, Dante witnesses a procession which forms an allegory within the allegory, somewhat like Shakespeare's play within a play. - It has a very different style from the Purgatorio as a whole, having the form of a masque, where the characters are walking symbols rather than real people. - The procession consists of (Canto XXIX): - “Twenty-four elders“ representing the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, as classified by Jerome - "Four animals" with "six wings as plumage" a traditional representation of the four Evangelists - "A chariot triumphal on two wheels," bearing Beatrice, which is drawn by... - A griffin, representing the conjoined divinity and humanity of Christ - "Three circling women" coloured red, green, and white, representing the three theological virtues: Love, Hope, and Faith, respectively - "Four other women" dressed in purple, representing the four cardinal virtues: Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Fortitude - "Two elders, different in their dress," representing the Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline epistles - "Four of humble aspect," representing the general epistles - "When all the rest had passed, a lone old man," representing the Book of Revelation - The appearance of Beatrice, and a dramatic reconciliation scene between Beatrice and Dante, in which she rebukes his sin (Cantos XXX and XXXI), help cover the disappearance of Virgil, who, as a symbol of non-Christian philosophy and humanities, can help him no further in his approach to God. - Dante then passes through the River Lethe, which erases the memory of past sin (Canto XXXI), and sees an allegory of Biblical and Church history. This allegory includes a denunciation of the corrupt papacy of the time: a harlot (the papacy) is dragged away with the chariot (the Church) by a giant (the French monarchy, which under King Philip IV engineered the move of the Papal Seat to Avignon in 1309 (Canto XXXII). - It is noon as the events observed in the Earthly Paradise come to a close. Finally, Dante drinks from the River Eunoë, which restores good memories, and prepares him for his ascent to Heaven (described in the Paradiso, the final cantica). As with the other two parts of the Divine Comedy, the Purgatorio ends on the word "stars" (Canto XXXIII). - "From that most holy wave I now returned to Beatrice; remade, as new trees are renewed when they bring forth new boughs, I was pure and prepared to climb unto the stars."