Dante's Purgatorio: Canto I
The Shores of Purgatory. The Four Stars. Cato of Utica. The Rush.
TO run o'er better waters hoists its sail
The little vessel of my genius now,
That leaves behind itself a sea so cruel;
And of that second kingdom will I sing
Wherein the human spirit doth purge itself, 5
And to ascend to heaven becometh worthy.
But let dead Poesy here rise again,
O holy Muses, since that I am yours,
And here Calliope somewhat ascend,
My song accompanying with that sound, 10
Of which the miserable magpies felt
The blow so great, that they despaired of pardon.
Sweet colour of the oriental sapphire,
That was upgathered in the cloudless aspect
Of the pure air, as far as the first circle, 15
Unto mine eyes did recommence delight
Soon as I issued forth from the dead air,
Which had with sadness filled mine eyes and breast.
The beauteous planet, that to love incites,
Was making all the orient to laugh, 20
Veiling the Fishes that were in her escort.
To the right hand I turned, and fixed my mind
Upon the other pole, and saw four stars
Ne'er seen before save by the primal people.
Rejoicing in their flamelets seemed the heaven. 25
O thou septentrional and widowed site,
Because thou art deprived of seeing these!
When from regarding them I had withdrawn,
Turning a little to the other pole,
There where the Wain had disappeared already, 30
I saw beside me an old man alone,
Worthy of so much reverence in his look,
That more owes not to father any son.
A long beard and with white hair intermingled
He wore, in semblance like unto the tresses, 35
Of which a double list fell on his breast.
The rays of the four consecrated stars
Did so adorn his countenance with light,
That him I saw as were the sun before him.
"Who are you? ye who, counter the blind river, 40
Have fled away from the eternal prison?"
Moving those venerable plumes, he said:
"Who guided you? or who has been your lamp
In issuing forth out of the night profound,
That ever black makes the infernal valley? 45
The laws of the abyss, are they thus broken?
Or is there changed in heaven some council new,
That being damned ye come unto my crags?"
Then did my Leader lay his grasp upon me,
And with his words, and with his hands and signs, 50
Reverent he made in me my knees and brow;
Then answered him: "I came not of myself;
A Lady from Heaven descended, at whose prayers
I aided this one with my company.
But since it is thy will more be unfolded 55
Of our condition, how it truly is,
Mine cannot be that this should be denied thee.
This one has never his last evening seen,
But by his folly was so near to it
That very little time was there to turn. 60
As I have said, I unto him was sent
To rescue him, and other way was none
Than this to which I have myself betaken.
I've shown him all the people of perdition,
And now those spirits I intend to show 65
Who purge themselves beneath thy guardianship.
How I have brought him would be long to tell thee.
Virtue descendeth from on high that aids me
To lead him to behold thee and to hear thee.
Now may it please thee to vouchsafe his coming; 70
He seeketh Liberty, which is so dear,
As knoweth he who life for her refuses.
Thou know'st it; since, for her, to thee not bitter
Was death in Utica, where thou didst leave
The vesture, that will shine so, the great day. 75
By us the eternal edicts are not broken;
Since this one lives, and Minos binds not me;
But of that circle I, where are the chaste
Eyes of thy Marcia, who in looks still prays thee,
O holy breast, to hold her as thine own; 80
For her love, then, incline thyself to us.
Permit us through thy sevenfold realm to go;
I will take back this grace from thee to her,
If to be mentioned there below thou deignest."
"Marcia so pleasing was unto mine eyes 85
While I was on the other side," then said he,
"That every grace she wished of me I granted;
Now that she dwells beyond the evil river,
She can no longer move me, by that law
Which, when I issued forth from there, was made. 90
But if a Lady of Heaven do move and rule thee,
As thou dost say, no flattery is needful;
Let it suffice thee that for her thou ask me.
Go, then, and see thou gird this one about
With a smooth rush, and that thou wash his face, 95
So that thou cleanse away all stain therefrom,
For 'twere not fitting that the eye o'ercast
By any mist should go before the first
Angel, who is of those of Paradise.
This little island round about its base 100
Below there, yonder, where the billow beats it,
Doth rushes bear upon its washy ooze;
No other plant that putteth forth the leaf,
Or that doth indurate, can there have life,
Because it yieldeth not unto the shocks. 105
Thereafter be not this way your return;
The sun, which now is rising, will direct you
To take the mount by easier ascent."
With this he vanished; and I raised me up
Without a word, and wholly drew myself 110
Unto my Guide, and turned mine eyes to him.
And he began: "Son, follow thou my steps;
Let us turn back, for on this side declines
The plain unto its lower boundaries."
The dawn was vanquishing the matin hour 115
Which fled before it, so that from afar
I recognised the trembling of the sea.
Along the solitary plain we went
As one who unto the lost road returns,
And till he finds it seems to go in vain. 120
As soon as we were come to where the dew
Fights with the sun, and, being in a part
Where shadow falls, little evaporates,
Both of his hands upon the grass outspread
In gentle manner did my Master place; 125
Whence I, who of his action was aware,
Extended unto him my tearful cheeks;
There did he make in me uncovered wholly
That hue which Hell had covered up in me.
Then came we down upon the desert shore 130
Which never yet saw navigate its waters
Any that afterward had known return.
There he begirt me as the other pleased;
O marvellous! for even as he culled
The humble plant, such it sprang up again 135
Suddenly there where he uprooted it.
NOTES
1 - 1
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.”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 it the garden of the Terrestial Paradise.
The Seven Sins punished in the Seven Circles are, – 1. Pride; 2. Envy; 3. Anger; 4. Sloth; 5. Avarice and Prodigality; 6. Gluttony; 7. Lust.
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.
“Traces of belief in a Purgatory,” says Mr. Alger, Doctrine
of a Future Life, p. 410, “early appear among the
Christians. Many of the gravest Fathers of the first five
centuries naturally conceived and taught, – as is indeed
intrinsically reasonable, – that after death some souls
will be punished for their sins until they are cleansed, and
then will be released from pain. The Manichaeans imagined
that all souls, before returning to their native heaven,
must be borne first to the moon, where with good waters they
would be washed pure from outward filth, and then to the
sun, where they would be purged by good fires from every
inward stain. After these lunar and solar lustrations, they
were fit for the eternal world of light. But the conception
of Purgatory as it was held by the early Christians, whether
orthodox Fathers or heretical sects, was merely the just and
necessary result of applying to the subject of future
punishment the two ethical ideas that punishment should
partake of degrees proportioned to guilt, and that it should
be restorative.....
”Pope Gregory the Great, in the sixth century, – either
borrowing some of the more objectionable features of the
Purgatory-doctrine previously held by the heathen, or else
divising the same things himself from a perception of the
striking adaptedness of such notions to secure an enviable
power to the Church, – constructed, established, and gave
working efficiency to the dogmatic scheme of Purgatory ever
since firmly defended by the Papal adherents as an integral
part of the Roman Catholic system. The doctrine as matured
and promulgated by Gregory, giving to the representatives of
the Church an almost unlimited power over Purgatory, rapidly
grew into favor with the clergy, and sank with general
conviction into the hopes and fears of the laity.“9 - 9
The Muse ”of the beautiful voice,“ who presided over eloquence and heroic verse.
11 - 11
The nine daughters of Pierus, king of Macedonia, called the Pierides. They challenged the Muses to a trial of skill in singing, and being vanquished were changed by Apollo into magpies. Ovid, Met. V., Maynwaring's Tr.: –
”Beneath their nails Feathers they feel, and on their faces scales; Their horny beaks at once each other scare, Their arms are plumed, and on their backs they bear Pied wings, and flutter in the fleeting air. Chatt'ring, the scandal of the woods, they fly, And there continue still their clam'rous cry: The same their eloquence, as maids or birds, Now only noise, and nothing then but words.“
15 - 15
The highest heaven.
19 - 19
The planet Venus.
20 - 20
Chaucer, Knightes Tale: –
”The besy larke, the messager of day,
Saleweth in hire song the morwe gray,
And firy Phebus riseth up so bright,
That all the orient laugheth of the sight.“23 - 23
The stars of the Southern Cross. Figuratively the four cardinal virtues, Justice, Prudence, Fortitude, and Temperance. See Canto XXXI. 106: –
”We here are Nymphs, and in the Heaven are stars.“The next line may be interpreted in the same figurative sense.
Humboldt, Personal Narrative, II. 21, Miss Williams's Tr., thus describes his first glimpse of the Southern Cross.
”The pleasure we felt on discovering the Southern Cross was
warmly shared by such of the crew as had lived in the
colonies. In the solitude of the seas, we hail a star as a
friend from whom we have long been separated. Among the
Portuguese and the Spaniards peculiar motives seem to
increase this feeling; a religious sentiment attaches them
to a constellation, the form of which recalls the sign of
the faith planted by their ancestors in the deserts of the
Nes World.
“The two great stars which mark the summit and the foot of
the Cross having nearly the same right ascension, it follows
hence, that the constellation is almost perpendicular at the
moment when it passes the meridian. This circumstance is
known to every nation that lives beyond the tropics, or in
the Southern hemisphere. It has been observed at what hour
of the night, in different seasons, the Cross of the South
is erect or inclined. It is a time-piece that advances very
regularly near four minutes a day, and no other group of
stars exhibits, to the naked eye, an observation of time so
easily made. How often have we heard our guides exclaim in
the savannahs of Venezuela, or in the desert extending from
Lima to Truxillo, 'Midnight is past, the Cross begins to
bend!' How often those words reminded us of that affecting
scene, where Paul and Virginia, seated near the source of
the river of Lataniers, conversed together for the last
time, and where the old man, at the sight of the Southern
Cross, warns them that it is time to separate.”24 - 24
By the “primal people” Dante does not mean our first parents, but “the early races which inhabited Europe and Asia,” says Mr. Barlow, Study of Dante, and quotes in confirmation of his view the following passage from Humboldt's Cosmos, II.:
“In consequence of the precession of the equinoxes, the
starry heavens are continually changing their aspect from
every portion of the earth's surface. The early races of
mankind beheld in the far north the glorious constellations
of the southern hemisphere rise before them, which, after
remaining long invisible, will again appear in those
latitudes after a lapse of thousands of years. ....The
Southern Cross began to become invisible in 52o 30' north
latitude 2900 years before our era, since, according to
Galle, this constellation might previously have reached an
altitude of more than 10o. When it disappeared from the
horizon of the countries of the Baltic, the great Pyramid of
Cheops had already been erected more than 500 years.”30 - 30
Iliad, XVIII.: “The Pleiades, and the Hyades, and the strength of Orion, and the Bear, which likewise they call by the appellation of the Wain, which there turns round and watches Orion; and it alone is deprived of the baths of Oceanus.”
31 - 31
Cato of Utica. “Pythagoras escapes, in the fabulous hell of Dante,” says Sir Thomas Brown, Urn Burial, IV., “among that swarm of philosophers, wherein, whilst we meet with Plato and Socrates, Cato is found in no lower place than Purgatory.”
In the description of the shield of AEneas, AEneid, VII., Cato is represented as presiding over the good in the Tartarean realms: “And the good apart, Cato dispensing laws to them.” This line of Virgil may have suggested to Dante the idea of making Cato the warden of Purgatory.
In the Convito, IV. 28, he expresses the greatest reverence for him. Marcie returning to him in her widowhood, he says, “symbolizes the noble soul returning to God in old age.” And continues: “What man on earth was more worthy to symbolize God, than Cato? Surely none”; – ending the chapter with these words: “In his name it is beautiful to close what I have had to say of the signs of nobility, because in him this nobility displays them all through all ages.”
Here, on the shores of Purgatory, his countenance is adorned with the light of the four stars which are the four virtues, Justice, Prudence, Fortitude, and Temperance, and it is foretold of him, that his garments will shine brightly on the last day. And here he is the symbol of Liberty, since, for her sake, to him “not bitter was death in Utica”; and the meaning of Purgatory is spiritual Liberty, or freedom from sin through purification, “the glorious liberty of the children of God.” Therefore in thus selecting the “Divine Cato” for the guardian of this realm, Dante shows himself to have greater freedom than the critics, who accuse him of “a perverse theology in saving the soul of an idolater and suicide.”
40 - 40
The “blind river” is Lethe, which by sound and not by sight had guided them through the winding cavern from the centre of the earth to the surface. Inf. XXXIV. 130.
42 - 42
His beard. Ford, Lady's Trial:
“Now the down Of softness is exchanged for plumes of age.”
Dante uses the same expression, Inf. XX. 45, and Petrarca, who became gray at an early period, says:
“In such a tenebrous and narrow cage
Were we shut up, and the accustomed plumes
I changed betimes, and my first countenance.”52 - 52
Upon this speech of Virgil to Cato, Mr. Barlow, Study of Dante, remarks: “The eight book of the Tesoro of Brunetto Latini is headed, Qui comincia la Rettorica che c'insegna a ben parlare, e di governare cittá e popoli. In this art Dante was duly instructed by his loving master, and became the most able orator of his era in Italy. Giov. Villani speaks of him as retorico perfetto tanta in dittare e versificare come in aringhiera a parlare. But without this record and without acquaintance with the poet's political history, knowing nothing of his influence in debates and councils, nor of his credit at foreign courts, we might, from the occasional speeches in the Divina Commedia, be fully assured of the truth of what Villani has said, and that Dante's words and manner were always skilfully adapted to the purpose he had in view, and to the persons whom he addressed.
”Virgil's speech to the venerable Cato is a perfect specimen
of pursuasive eloquence. The sense of personal dignity is
here combined with extreme courtesy and respect, and the
most flattering appeals to the old man's well-known
sentiments, his love of liberty, his love of rectitude, and
his devoted attachment to Marcia, are interwoven with
irresistible art; but though the resentment of Cato at the
approach of the strangers is thus appeased, and he is
persuaded to regard them with as much favor as the severity
of his character permits, yet he will not have them think
that his consent to their proceeding has been obtained by
adulation, but simply by the assertion of power vouchsafed
to them from on high, –
Ma se donna del Ciel ti muove e regge,
Come tu di', non c'é mestier lusinga:
Bastiti ben, che per lei mi richegge.In this also the consistency of Cato's character is maintained; he is sensible of the flattery, but disowns its influence.“
77 - 77
See Inf., V. 4.
78 - 78
See Inf., IV. 128. Also Convito, IV. 28: ”This the great poet Lucan shadows forth in the second book of his Pharsalia, when he says that Marcia returned to Cato, and besought him and entreated him to take her back in his old age. And by this Marcia is understood the noble soul.“
Lucan, Phars., II., Rowe's Tr.: –
”When lo! the sounding doors are heard to turn,
Chaste Martia comes from dead Hortensius' urn.
.....
Forth from the monument the mournful dame
With beaten breasts and locks dishevelled came;
Then with a pale, dejected, rueful look,
Thus pleasing to her former lord she spoke.
.....
'At length a barren wedlock let me prove,
Give me the name without the joys of love;
No more to be abandoned let me come,
That Cato's wife may live upon my tomb.'“95 - 95
A symbol of humility. Ruskin, Mod. Painters, III. 232, says: ”There is a still deeper significance in the passage quoted, a little while ago, from Homer, describing Ulysses casting himself down on the rushes and the corn-giving land at the river shore, – the rushes and corn being to him only good for rest and sustenance, – when we compare it with that in which Dante tells us he was ordered to descend to the shore of the lake as he entered Purgatory, to gather a rush, and gird himself with it, it being to him the emblem not only of rest, but of humility under chastisement, the rush (or reed) being the only plant which can grow there; – 'no plant which bears leaves, or hardens its bark, can live on that shore, because it does not yield to the chastisement of its waves.' It cannot but strike the reader singularly how deep and harmonious a significance runs through all these words of Dante, – how every syllable of them, the more we penetrate it, becomes a seed of farther thought! For follow up this image of the girding with the reed, under trial, and see to whose feet it will lead us. As the grass of the earth, thought of as the herb yielding seed, leads us to the place where our Lord commanded the multitude to sit down by companies upon the green grass; so the grass of the waters, thought of as sustaining itself among the waters of affliction, leads us to the place where a stem of it was put into our Lord's hand for his sceptre; and in the crown of thorns, and the rod of reed, was foreshown the everlasting truth of the Christian ages, – that all glory was to be begun in suffering, and all power in humility.“
115 - 115
Ruskin, Mod. Painters, III. 248:
”There is only one more point to be noticed in the Dantesque
landscape; namely, the feeling entertained by the poet
towards the sky. And the love of mountains is so closely
connected with the love of clouds, the sublimity of both
depending much on their association, that, having found
Dante regardless of the Carrara mountains as seen from San
Miniato, we may well expect to find him equally regardless
of the clouds in which the sun sank behind them.
Accordingly, we find that his only pleasure in the sky
depends on its 'white clearness,' – that turning into
bianco aspetto di celestro, which is so peculiarly
characteristic of fine days in Italy. His pieces of pure
pale light are always exquisite. In the dawn on the
purgatorial mountain, first, in its pale white, he sees the
tremolar della marina, – trembling of the sea; then it
becomes vermilion; and at last, near sunrise, orange. These
are precisely the changes of a calm and perfect dawn. The
scenery of Paradise begins with 'day added to day,' the
light of the sun so flooding the heavens, that 'never rain
nor river made lake so wide'; and throughout the Paradise
all the beauty depends on spheres of light, or stars, never
on clouds. But the pit of the Inferno is at first sight
obscure, deep, and so cloudy that at its bottom nothing
could be seen. When Dante and Virgil reach the marsh in
which the souls of those who have been angry and sad in
their lives are forever plunged, they find it covered with
thick fog; and the condemned souls say to them,'We once were sad, In the sweet air, made gladsome by the sun. Now in these murky settlings are we sad.'
Even the angel crossing the marsh to help them is annoyed by
this bitter marsh smoke, fummo acerbo, and continually
sweeps it with his hand from before his face.“123 - 123
Some commentators interpret Ove adorezza, by “where the wind blows.” But the blowing of the wind would produce an effect exactly opposite to that here described.
135 - 135
AEneid, VI.: “When the first is torn off, a second of gold succeeds; and a twig shoots forth leaves of the same metal.”