The Divine Comedy

by Dante Alighieri

  23. four stars: Modern readers are always tempted to identify these four stars as the Southern Cross, but it is almost certain that Dante did not know about that formation. In VIII, 89, Dante mentions three other stars as emphatically as he does these four and no one has been tempted to identify them on the star-chart. Both constellations are best taken as allegorical. The four stars represent the Four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance. Dante will encounter them again in the form of nymphs when he achieves the Earthly Paradise.

  24. the first mankind: Adam and Eve. In Dante’s geography, the Garden of Eden (the Earthly Paradise) was at the top of the Mount of Purgatory, which was the only land in the Southern Hemisphere. All of what were called “the southern continents” were believed to lie north of the equator. When Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden, therefore, they were driven into the Northern Hemisphere, and no living soul since had been far enough south to see those stars.

  Ulysses and his men (Inferno, XXVI) had come within sight of the Mount of Purgatory, but Ulysses mentioned nothing of having seen these stars. 29. the other pole: The North Pole. The Wain (Ursa Major, i.e., the Big Dipper) is below the horizon.

  31 ff. CATO OF UTICA. Marcus Porcius Cato, the younger, 95-46 B.C. In the name of freedom, Cato opposed the policies of both Caesar and Pompey, but because he saw Caesar as the greater evil joined forces with Pompey. After the defeat of his cause at the Battle of Thapsus, Cato killed himself with his own sword rather than lose his freedom. Virgil lauds him in the Aeneid as a symbol of perfect devotion to liberty, and all writers of Roman antiquity have given Cato a similar high place. Dante spends the highest praises on him both in De Monarchia and Il Convivio.

  Why Cato should be so signally chosen by God as the special guardian of Purgatory has been much disputed. Despite his suicide (and certainly one could argue that he had less excuse for it than had Pier delle Vigne—see Inferno, XIII—for his) he was sent to Limbo as a Virtuous Pagan. From Limbo he was especially summoned to his present office. It is clear, moreover, that he will find a special triumph on Judgment Day, though he will probably not be received into Heaven.

  The key to Dante’s intent seems to lie in the four stars, the Four Cardinal Virtues, that shine so brightly on Cato’s face when Dante first sees him. Once Cato is forgiven his suicide (and a partisan could argue that it was a positive act, a death for freedom), he may certainly be taken as a figure of Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance. He does very well, moreover, as a symbol of the natural love of freedom; and Purgatory, it must be remembered, is the road to Ultimate Freedom. Cato may be taken, therefore, as representative of supreme virtue short of godliness. He has accomplished everything but the purifying total surrender of his will to God. As such he serves as an apt transitional symbol, being the highest rung on the ladder of natural virtue, but the lowest on the ladder of those godly virtues to which Purgatory is the ascent. Above all, the fact that he took Marcia (see line 78, note) back to his love, makes him an especially apt symbol of God’s forgiveness in allowing the strayed soul to return to him through Purgatory.

  53. A Heavenly Lady: Beatrice.

  77. Minos: The Judge of the Damned. The round in Hell not ruled by Minos is Limbo, the final resting place of the Virtuous Pagans. Minos (see Inferno, V) is stationed at the entrance to the second circle of Hell. The souls in Limbo (the first circle) have never had to pass before him to be judged.

  78. Marcia. The story of Marcia and of Cato is an extraordinary one. She was the daughter of the consul Philippus and became Cato’s second wife, bearing his three children. In 56 B.C., in an unusual transaction approved by her father, Cato released her in order that she might marry his friend Hortensius. (Hence line 87: “that all she asked, I did.”) After the death of Hortensius, Cato took her back.

  In Il Convivio, IV, 28, Dante presents the newly widowed Marcia praying to be taken back in order that she may die the wife of Cato, and that it may be said of her that she was not cast forth from his love. Dante treats that return as an allegory of the return of the strayed soul to God (that it may die “married” to God, and that God’s love for it be made manifest to all time). Virgil describes Marcia as still praying to Cato.

  89. the Decree: May be taken as that law that makes an absolute separation between the damned and the saved. Cato cannot be referring here to Mark, xii, 25 (“when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage”) for that “decree” was not pronounced upon his ascent from Limbo.

  98. filmed by mist: Of Hell.

  100 ff. THE REED. The pliant reed clearly symbolizes humility, but other allegorical meanings suggest themselves at once. First, the Reed takes the place of the Cord that Dante took from about his waist in order to signal Geryon. The Cord had been intended to snare and defeat the Leopard with the Gaudy Pelt, a direct assault upon sin. It is now superseded by the Reed of submission to God’s will. Second, the reeds are eternal and undiminishable. As such they must immediately suggest the redemption purchased by Christ’s sufferings (ever-abounding grace), for the quantity of grace available to mankind through Christ’s passion is, in Christian creed, also eternal and undiminishable. The importance of the fact that the reeds grow at the lowest point of the Island and that the Poets must descend to them before they can begin, has already been mentioned. Curiously, the reed is never again mentioned, though it must remain around Dante’s waist. See also Matthew, xxvii, 29.

  119. breeze shielded the dew: The dew is a natural symbol of God’s grace. The morning breeze shields it in the sense that, being cool, it retards evaporation.

  Even more naturally, being bathed in the dew may be taken to signify baptism. The structure of Purgatory certainly suggests a parable of the soul’s stages of sacred development: the dew, baptism; the gate of Purgatory, above, first communion; Virgil’s certification of Dante as lord of himself (XXVII, 143), confirmation; and Dante’s swoon and awakening (XXXI, 89), as extreme unction and the reception into the company of the blessed.

  Canto II

  ANTE-PURGATORY:

  THE SHORE OF THE ISLAND

  The Angel Boatman

  Casella

  Cato of Utica

  It is dawn. Dante, washed, and girded by the reed, is standing by the shore when he sees a light approaching at enormous speed across the sea. The light grows and becomes visible as THE ANGEL BOATMAN who ferries the souls of the elect from their gathering place at THE MOUTH OF THE TIBER to the shore of Purgatory.

  The newly arrived souls debark and, taking the Poets as familiars of the place, ask directions. Virgil explains that he and Dante are new arrivals but that they have come by the dark road through Hell. The newly arrived souls see by his breathing that Dante is alive and crowd about him. One of the new souls is CASELLA, a musician who seems to have been a dear friend of Dante’s. Dante tries three times to clasp him to his bosom, but each time his arms pass through empty air. Casella explains the function of the Angel Boatman and then, at Dante’s request, strikes up a song, one of Dante’s own canzoni that Casella had set to music. Instantly, CATO descends upon the group, berating them, and they break like startled pigeons up the slope toward the mountain.

  The sun already burned at the horizon,

  while the high point of its meridian circle

  covered Jerusalem, and in opposition

  equal Night revolved above the Ganges

  bearing the Scales that fall out of her hand

  as she grows longer with the season’s changes:

  thus, where I was, Aurora in her passage

  was losing the pale blushes from her cheeks

  which turned to orange with increasing age.

  We were still standing by the sea’s new day

  like travelers pondering the road ahead

  who send their souls on while their bones delay;

  when low above the ocean’s western rim,

  as Mars, at times, observed through the thick vapors

 
that form before the dawn, burns red and slim;

  just so—so may I hope to see it again!—

  a light appeared, moving above the sea

  faster than any flight. A moment then

  I turned my eyes to question my sweet Guide,

  and when I looked back to that unknown body

  I found its mass and brightness magnified.

  Then from each side of it came into view

  an unknown something-white; and from beneath it,

  bit by bit, another whiteness grew.

  We watched till the white objects at each side

  took shape as wings, and Virgil spoke no word.

  But when he saw what wings they were, he cried:

  “Down on your knees! It is God’s angel comes!

  Down! Fold your hands! From now on you shall see

  many such ministers in the high kingdoms.

  See how he scorns man’s tools: he needs no oars

  nor any other sail than his own wings

  to carry him between such distant shores.

  See how his pinions tower upon the air,

  pointing to Heaven: they are eternal plumes

  and do not moult like feathers or human hair.”

  Then as that bird of heaven closed the distance

  between us, he grew brighter and yet brighter

  until I could no longer bear the radiance,

  and bowed my head. He steered straight for the shore,

  his ship so light and swift it drew no water;

  it did not seem to sail so much as soar.

  Astern stood the great pilot of the Lord,

  so fair his blessedness seemed written on him;

  and more than a hundred souls were seated forward,

  singing as if they raised a single voice

  in exitu Israel de Aegypto.

  Verse after verse they made the air rejoice.

  The angel made the sign of the cross, and they

  cast themselves, at his signal, to the shore.

  Then, swiftly as he had come, he went away.

  The throng he left seemed not to understand

  what place it was, but stood and stared about

  like men who see the first of a new land.

  The Sun, who with an arrow in each ray

  had chased the Goat out of the height of Heaven,

  on every hand was shooting forth the day,

  when those new souls looked up to where my Guide

  and I stood, saying to us, “If you know it,

  show us the road that climbs the mountainside.”

  Virgil replied: “You think perhaps we two

  have had some long experience of this place,

  but we are also pilgrims, come before you

  only by very little, though by a way

  so steep, so broken, and so tortuous

  the climb ahead of us will seem like play.”

  The throng of souls, observing by my breath

  I was still in the body I was born to,

  stared in amazement and grew pale as death.

  As a crowd, eager for news, will all but smother

  a messenger who bears the olive branch,

  and not care how they trample one another—

  so these, each one of them a soul elect,

  pushed close to stare at me, well-nigh forgetting

  the way to go to make their beauty perfect.

  One came forward to embrace me, and his face

  shone with such joyous love that, seeing it,

  I moved to greet him with a like embrace.

  O solid-seeming shadows! Three times there

  I clasped my hands behind him, and three times

  I drew them to my breast through empty air.

  Amazed, I must have lost all color then,

  for he smiled tenderly and drew away,

  and I lunged forward as if to try again.

  In a voice as gentle as a melody

  he bade me pause; and by his voice I knew him,

  and begged him stay a while and speak to me.

  He answered: “As I loved you in the clay

  of my mortal body, so do I love you freed:

  therefore I pause. But what brings you this way?”

  “Casella mine, I go the way I do

  in the hope I may return here,” I replied.

  “But why has so much time been taken from you?”

  And he: “I am not wronged if he whose usage

  accepts the soul at his own time and pleasure

  has many times refused to give me passage:

  his will moves in the image and perfection

  of a Just Will; indeed, for three months now

  he has taken all who asked, without exception.

  And so it was that in my turn I stood

  upon that shore where Tiber’s stream grows salt,

  and there was gathered to my present good.

  It is back to the Tiber’s mouth he has just flown,

  for there forever is the gathering place

  of all who do not sink to Acheron.”

  “If no new law has stripped you of your skill

  or of the memory of those songs of love

  that once could calm all passion from my will,”

  I said to him, “Oh sound a verse once more

  to soothe my soul which, with its weight of flesh

  and the long journey, sinks distressed and sore.”

  “Love that speaks its reasons in my heart,”

  he sang then, and such grace flowed on the air

  that even now I hear that music start.

  My Guide and I and all those souls of bliss

  stood tranced in song; when suddenly we heard

  the Noble Elder cry: “What’s this! What’s this!

  Negligence! Loitering! O laggard crew

  run to the mountain and strip off the scurf

  that lets not God be manifest in you!”

  Exactly as a flock of pigeons gleaning

  a field of stubble, pecking busily,

  forgetting all their primping and their preening,

  will rise as one and scatter through the air,

  leaving their feast without another thought

  when they are taken by a sudden scare—

  so that new band, all thought of pleasure gone,

  broke from the feast of music with a start

  and scattered for the mountainside like one

  who leaps and does not look where he will land.

  Nor were my Guide and I inclined to stand.

  NOTES

  1-9. The bit of erudite affectation in which Dante indulges here means simply, “It was dawn.” To understand the total figure, one must recall the following essentials of Dante’s geography: (1) Jerusalem is antipodal to the Mount of Purgatory. Thus it is sunset at Jerusalem when it is sunrise on the mountain. (2) All the land of the earth is contained in one half of the Northern Hemisphere. That is to say, there is no land (except the Mount of Purgatory) anywhere in the Southern Hemisphere and of the total circle of the Northern Hemisphere (360°) only half (180°) is land. Jerusalem is at the exact center of this 180° arc of land. Spain, 90° to one side, is the West, and India (Ganges), 90° to the other, is the East.

  Every fifteen degrees of longitude equals one hour of time. That is to say, it takes the Sun an hour to travel fifteen degrees. Thus at sunset over Jerusalem it is midnight (six hours later) over India, and noon (six hours earlier) over Spain. The journey, moreover, is conceived as taking place during the vernal equinox, when the days and nights are of the same length. Thus it is “equal Night” (line 4).

  Finally, when the Sun is in Aries, midnight is in Libra (the Scales). Thus the night bears the Scales in her hand (i.e., that constellation is visible), but Libra will no longer be the sign of the night as the season changes, and thus it may be said that the Scales will fall from her hand (i.e., will no longer be visible).

  47. in exitu Israel de Aegypto: When Israel
out of Egypt came. Psalm CXIII.

  50. cast themselves, at his signal, to the shore: Note that this is exactly what Dante says of the sinners leaving Charon’s ferry in Inferno, III, 113. In Dante there is no accident in such correspondence. Such parallels between the Purgatorio and the Inferno are essential parts of the poem’s total structure.

  56. the Goat: Capricorn.

  71. who bears the olive branch: In Dante’s time couriers bore the olive branch to indicate not only peace but good news in general.

  79-84. O solid-seeming shadows!: As always, Dante treats the substance of the souls to suit his own dramatic convenience, at times giving them the attributes of fleshly bodies, at others treating them as mirages.

  91. Casella: Practically all that is known about Casella has been drawn from the text itself. He seems to have died several months before Dante began his journey, hence early in 1300 or late in 1299. There is no explanation of his delay in reaching Purgatory (the time that has been taken from him). Dante later meets several classes of sinners who must spend a certain period of waiting before they can begin their purification. Clearly it is Dante’s conception that the souls bound for Purgatory do not always proceed instantly to their destination, but may be required to expiate by a delay at their gathering point by the mouth of the Tiber (line 101).