The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
which seemed made of some adamantine stone.
With great good will my Master guided me
up the three steps and whispered in my ear:
“Now beg him humbly that he turn the key.”
Devoutly prostrate at his holy feet,
I begged in mercy’s name to be let in,
but first three times upon my breast I beat.
Seven P’s, the seven scars of sin,
his sword point cut into my brow. He said:
“Scrub off these wounds when you have passed within.”
Color of ashes, of parched earth one sees
deep in an excavation, were his vestments,
and from beneath them he drew out two keys.
One was of gold, one silver. He applied
the white one to the gate first, then the yellow,
and did with them what left me satisfied.
“Whenever either of these keys is put
improperly in the lock and fails to turn it,”
the Angel said to us, “the door stays shut.
One is more precious. The other is so wrought
as to require the greater skill and genius,
for it is that one which unties the knot.
They are from Peter, and he bade me be
more eager to let in than to keep out
whoever cast himself prostrate before me.”
Then opening the sacred portals wide:
“Enter. But first be warned: do not look back
or you will find yourself once more outside.”
The Tarpeian rock-face, in that fatal hour
that robbed it of Metellus, and then the treasure,
did not give off so loud and harsh a roar
as did the pivots of the holy gate—
which were of resonant and hard-forged metal—
when they turned under their enormous weight.
At the first thunderous roll I turned half-round,
for it seemed to me I heard a chorus singing
Te deum laudamus mixed with that sweet sound.
I stood there and the strains that reached my ears
left on my soul exactly that impression
a man receives who goes to church and hears
the choir and organ ringing out their chords
and now does, now does not, make out the words.
NOTES
1-9. There is no wholly satisfactory explanation of this complex opening description. Dante seems to be saying that the third hour of darkness is beginning (hence, if sunset occurred at 6:00 it is now a bit after 8:00 P.M.) and that the aurora of the rising moon is appearing above the horizon.
He describes the Moon as the concubine of Tithonus. Tithonus, however, married the daughter of the Sun, Aurora (dawn), and it was she who begged Jove to give her husband immortality while forgetting to ask perpetual youth for him. Thus Tithonus lived but grew older and older beside his ageless bride. (In one legend he was later changed into a grasshopper.) Despite his advanced years, however, he seems here to be philandering with the Moon as his concubine. Dante describes the Moon as rising from Tithonus’ bed and standing on the balcony of the East (the horizon) with the constellation Scorpio gemmed on her forehead, that “cold [-blooded] beast whose sting is in his tail” being the scorpion.
Having given Tithonus a double life, Dante now adds a mixed metaphor in which the “steps” of the night have “wings.” Two of the steps (hours) have flown, and the third has just completed the first downstroke of its wings (i.e., has just begun its flight).
15. former woes: Tereus, the husband of Procne, raped her sister Philomela, and cut out her tongue so that she could not accuse him. Philomela managed to communicate the truth to Procne by means of her weaving. The two sisters thereupon took revenge by killing Itys, son of Procne and Tereus, and serving up his flesh to his father. Tereus, learning the truth, was about to kill the sisters when all were turned into birds. Ovid (Metamorphoses, VI, 424 ff.) has Tereus changed into a hoopoe, and probably (though the text leaves some doubt) Procne into a swallow and Philomela into a nightingale. Dante clearly takes the swallow to be Philomela.
18. prophetic in its vision: (Cf. Inferno, XXVI, 7.) It was an ancient belief that the dreams that came toward dawn were prophetic.
19-33. DANTE’S DREAM. Each of Dante’s three nights on the Mount of Purgatory ends with a dream that comes just before dawn. The present dream is relatively simple in its symbolism, and as we learn shortly after Dante’s awakening, it parallels his ascent of the mountain in the arms of Lucia. The dream is told, however, with such complexities of allusion that every reference must be carefully weighed.
To summarize the symbolism in the simplest terms, the Golden Eagle may best be rendered in its attributes. It comes from highest Heaven (from God), its feathers are pure gold (Love? God’s splendor?), its wings are outspread (the open arms of Divine Love?), and it appears poised to descend in an instant (as is Divine Grace). The Eagle snatches Dante up to the Sphere of Fire (the presence of God? the beginning of Purgatorial purification? both?), and both are so consumed by the fire that Dante, in his unpurified state, cannot bear it.
On another level, of course, the Eagle is Lucia (Divine Light), who has descended from Heaven, and who bears the sleeping Dante from the Flowering Valley to the beginning of the true Purgatory. Note that Lucia is an anagram for acuila, “eagle.”
On a third level, the dream simultaneously connects with the earlier reference to Ganymede, also snatched up by the eagle of God, but the two experiences are contrasted as much as they are compared. Ganymede was carried up by Jove’s eagle, Dante by Lucia. Ganymede was out hunting in the company of his worldly associates; Dante was laboring for grace, had renounced worldliness, and was in the company of great souls who were themselves awaiting purification. Ganymede was carried to Olympus; Dante to the beginning of a purification which, though he was still too unworthy to endure it, would in time make him a perfect servant of the true God. Thus, his experience is in the same pattern as Ganymede’s, but surpasses it as Faith surpasses Human Reason, and as Beatrice surpasses Virgil.
23. Ganymede: Son of Tros, the mythical founder of Troy, was reputedly the most beautiful of mortals, so beautiful that Jove sent an eagle (or perhaps went himself in the form of an eagle) to snatch up the boy and bring him to Heaven, where he became cup-bearer to the gods. The fact that Dante himself is about to begin the ascent of Purgatory proper (and hence to Heaven) inevitably suggests an allegory of the soul in the history of Ganymede. God calls to Himself what is most beautiful in man.
The fact that Dante always thought of the Trojans as an especially chosen people is also relevant (cf. Inferno, II, 13-30 and note). Ganymede was the son of the founder of Troy; Troy, in Dante’s Virgilian view, founded Rome. And through the Church of Rome men’s souls were enabled to mount to Heaven.
24. consistory: Here, the council of the gods on Olympus. Dante uses the same term to describe Paradise.
30. Sphere of Fire: The four elemental substances are earth, water, fire, and air. In Dante’s cosmography, the Sphere of Fire was located above the Sphere of Air and just under the Sphere of the Moon. Hence the eagle bore him to the top of the atmosphere. The Sphere of Fire, however, may also be taken as another symbol for God.
34-39. ACHILLES’ WAKING. It had been prophesied that Achilles would be killed at Troy. Upon the outbreak of the Trojan War, his mother, Thetis, stole him while he was sleeping, from the care of the centaur Chiron who was his tutor (see Inferno, XII, 71 ff.) and fled with him to Scyros, where she hid him disguised as a girl. He was found there and lured away by Ulysses and Diomede, who burn for that sin (among others) in Malebolge (see Inferno, XXVI, 56-63, and note). Thus Achilles, like Dante, was borne off in his sleep and awoke to find himself in a strange place.
51. that opening: The Gate, as the Poets will find, is closed and guarded. Dante (here and in line 62, below) can only mean “the opening in which the gate was set” and not “an op
55. Lucia (Loo-TCHEE-ya): Symbolizes Divine Light, Divine Grace. (See Inferno, II, 97, and note.)
77. three steps: (See also lines 94-102, below.) The entrance into Purgatory involves the ritual of the Roman Catholic confessional with the Angel serving as the confessor. The three steps are the three acts of the perfect confession: candid confession (mirroring the whole man), mournful contrition, and burning gratitude for God’s mercy. The Angel Guardian, as the priestly confessor, does not move or speak as the Poets approach, because he can admit to purification only those who ask for admission.
86. Where is your Guide?: It must follow from the Angel’s question that souls ready to enter Purgatory are led up the mountain by another Angel. Dante and Virgil are arriving in an irregular way, as they did to the shore below, where they were asked essentially the same question by Cato. Note, too, that Virgil answers for the Poets, as he did to Cato. The allegory may be that right thinking answers for a man, at least to start with, though the actual entrance into the state of Grace requires an act of Faith and of Submission.
90. told us: Lucia spoke only with her eyes, and what Virgil is quoting is her look. What he is quoting is, in essence, correct, but it does seem he could have been a bit more accurate in his first actual conversation with an Angel.
94-96. the first step: Contrition of the heart. White for purity, shining for hope, and flawless for perfection. It is not only the mirror of the soul, but it is that mirror in which the soul sees itself as it truly is and not in its outward seeming.
97-99. the second: Contrition of the mouth, i.e., confession. The color of a bruise for the shame that envelops the soul as it confesses, rough-grained and fire-flaked for the pain the confessant must endure, and cracked for the imperfection (sin) the soul confesses.
100-102. the third: Satisfaction by works. Red for the ardor that leads to good works. Porphyry is, of course, a purple stone, but Dante does not say the stone was porphyry; only that it resembled it, though red in color.
“Artery” here is, of course, an anachronism, the circulation of the blood having yet to be discovered in Dante’s time. Dante uses the word vena (vein), but it seems to me the anachronism will be less confusing to a modern reader than would be the idea of bright red and spurting venous blood.
103-105. The Angel, as noted, represents the confessor, and, more exactly, the Church Confessant. Thus the Church is founded on adamant and rests its feet on Good Works.
112. Seven P’s: P is for the Latin peccatum. Thus there is one P for each of the Seven Deadly Sins for which the sinners suffer on the seven ledges above: Pride, Envy, Wrath, Acedia (Sloth), Avarice (Hoarding and Prodigality), Gluttony, and Lust.
Dante has just completed the act of confession and the Angel confessor marks him to indicate that even in a shriven soul there remain traces of the seven sins which can be removed only by suffering.
115-117. Color of ashes, of parched earth: The colors of humility which befit the office of the confessor. two keys: (Cf. the Papal Seal, which is a crown above two crossed keys, and also Inferno, XXVII, 99-102.) The keys symbolize the power of the confessor (the Church, and hence the Pope) to grant or to withhold absolution. In the present context they may further be interpreted as the two parts of the confessor’s office of admission: the gold key may be taken to represent his ordained authority, the silver key as the learning and reflection with which he must weigh the guilt before assigning penance and offering absolution.
126. unties the knot: Another mixed metaphor. The soul-searched judgment of the confessor (the silver key) decides who may and who may not receive absolution, and in resolving that problem the door is opened, provided that the gold key of ordained authority has already been turned.
133-138. The Tarpeian rock-face: The public treasury of Rome was kept in the great scarp of Tarpeia on the Campidoglio. The tribune Metellus was its custodian when Caesar, returned to Rome after crossing the Rubicon, moved to seize the treasury. Metellus opposed him but was driven away and the great gates were opened. Lucan (Pharsalia, III, 154-156 and 165-168) describes the scene and the roar that echoed from the rock face as the gates were forced open.
139-141. The thunder of the opening of the Gates notifies the souls within that a new soul has entered, and they burst into the hymn “We Praise Thee, O God.” (Contrast these first sounds of Purgatory with the first sounds of Hell—Inferno, III, 22-24.) Despite the thunderous roar right next to him, Dante seems to hear with his “allegorical ear” what certainly could not have registered upon his physical ear.
This seeming incongruity has long troubled me. I owe Professor MacAllister a glad thanks for what is certainly the essential clarification. The whole Purgatorio, he points out, is built upon the structure of a Mass. The Mass moreover is happening not on the mountain but in church with Dante devoutly following its well-known steps. I have not yet had time to digest Professor MacAllister’s suggestion, but it strikes me immediately as a true insight and promises another illuminating way of reading the Purgatorio.
Canto X
THE NEEDLE’S EYE
THE FIRST CORNICE
The Proud
The Whip of Pride
The gate closes behind them and the Poets begin the ascent to The FIRST CORNICE through a tortuous passage that Dante describes as a NEEDLE’S EYE. They reach the Cornice about 9:00 or 10:00 of Monday morning.
At first the Cornice seems deserted. Dante’s eye is caught by a series of three marvelously wrought bas-reliefs in the marble of the inner cliff face. Three panels depict three scenes that serve as THE WHIP OF PRIDE, exemplifying to each sinner as he enters how far greater souls have put by far greater reasons for pride in order to pursue the grace of humility.
As Dante stands in admiration before the carvings, Virgil calls his attention to a band of souls approaching from the left, and Dante turns for his first sight of the souls of THE PROUD, who crawl agonizingly round and round the Cornice under the crushing weight of enormous slabs of rock. Their punishment is so simple and so terrible that Dante can scarcely bear to describe it. He cries out in anguish to the proud of this world to take heed of the nature of their sin and of its unbearable punishment.
When we had crossed the threshold of that gate
so seldom used because man’s perverse love
so often makes the crooked path seem straight,
I knew by the sound that it had closed again;
and had I looked back, to what water ever
could I have gone to wash away that stain?
We climbed the rock along a narrow crack
through which a zigzag pathway pitched and slid
just as a wave swells full and then falls back.
“This calls for careful judgment,” said my guide.
“Avoid the places where the rock swells up
and weave among the troughs from side to side.”
Our steps became so difficult and few,
the waning moon had reached its western bed
and sunk to rest before we could work through
that needle’s eye. But when we had won clear
to an open space above, at which the mountain
steps back to form a ledge, we halted there;
I tired, and both of us confused for lack
of any sign or guide. The ledge was level,
and lonelier even than a desert track.
From brink to cliff-face measured three men’s height,
and the Cornice did not vary in its width
as far as I could see to left or right.
Our feet had not yet moved a step up there,
when I made out that all the inner cliff
which rose without a foothold anywhere
was white and flawless marble and adorned
with sculptured scenes beside which Polyclitus’,
and even Nature’s, best works would be scorned.
with the decree of peace the centuries wept for,
which opened Heaven, ending the long ban,
stood carved before us with such force and love,
with such a living grace in his whole pose,
the image seemed about to speak and move.
One could have sworn an Ave! sounded clear,
for she who turned the key that opened to us
the Perfect Love, was also figured there;
and all her flowing gesture seemed to say—
impressed there as distinctly as a seal
impresses wax—Ecce ancilla Dei.
“Do not give all your thoughts to this one part,”
my gentle Master said. (I was then standing
on that side of him where man has his heart.)
I turned my eyes a little to the right
(the side on which he stood who had thus urged
me) and there, at Mary’s back, carved in that white
and flawless wall, I saw another scene,
and I crossed in front of Virgil and drew near it
the better to make out what it might mean.
Emerging from the marble were portrayed
the cart, the oxen, and the Ark from which