John T. Slattery - Dante: The Central Man of All the World

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This doctrine is expounded until the poets reach the third terrace,
where wrath is punished. Here Dante represents himself as having a
vision wherein he beholds examples of meekness and patience. First he
sees the Finding of the Boy Christ in the temple and hears Mary's gentle
complaint. Then follows the scene of Pisistratus refusing to condemn a
youth for insulting his daughter. The third picture is that of the
stoning of St. Stephen.

"Then suddenly I seem'd
By an ecstatic vision wrapt away:
And in a temple saw, methought, a crowd
Of many persons; and at the entrance stood
A dame, whose sweet demeanor did express
Another's love, who said, 'Child! why hast thou
Dealt with us thus? Behold thy sire and I
Sorrowing have sought thee;' and so held her peace;
And straight the vision fled. A female next
Appear'd before me, down whose visage coursed
Those waters, that grief forces out from one
By deep resentment stung who seem'd to say:
'If thou, Pisistratus, be lord indeed
Over this city, named with such debate
Of adverse gods, and whence each science sparkles,
Avenge thee of those arms, whose bold embrace
Hath clasp'd our daughter;' and to her, me seem'd,
Benigh and meek, with visage undisturb'd,
Her sovereign spake: 'How shall we those requite
Who wish us evil, if we thus condemn
The man that loves us?' After that I saw
A multitude, in fury burning, slay
With stones a stripling youth, and shout amain
'Destroy, destroy'; and him I saw, who bow'd
Heavy with death unto the ground, yet made
His eyes, unfolded upward, gates to heaven,
Praying forgiveness of the Almighty Sire,
Amidst that cruel conflict, on his foes,
With looks that win compassion to their aim."
(Canto, XV, 84.)

The wrathful are punished by being enveloped in a dense pungent smoke,
emblematic of the stifling caused by angry passions.

"Darkness of hell, and of a night deprived
Of every planet under a poor sky,
As much as may be tenebrous with cloud,
Ne'er made unto my sight so thick a veil,
As did that smoke which there enveloped us,
Nor to the feeling of so rough a texture;
For not an eye it suffered to stay open;
Whereat mine escort, faithful and sagacious,
Drew near to me and offered me his shoulder.
E'en as a blind man goes behind his guide,
Lest he should wander, or should strike against
Aught that may harm or peradventure kill him,
So went I through the bitter and foul air,
Listening unto my Leader, who said only,
'Look that from me thou be not separated.'
Voices I heard, and every one appeared
To supplicate for peace and misericord
The Lamb of God who takes away our sins.
Still _Agnus Dei_ their exordium was;
One word there was in all, and metre one,
So that all harmony appeared among them.
'Master,' I said, 'are spirits those I hear?'
And he to me: 'Thou apprehendest truly,
And they the knot of anger go unloosing.'"
(Canto, XVI, 1.)

Soon after this our poet hears one of the spirits of the wrathful,
discoursing on the degeneracy of human life and sees in a second series
of visions, historic instances of wrath and its punishment. He is
awakened from his trance by the shining light and the glad summons of
the Angel of meekness, who is at the stair leading to the next terrace.

"This is a spirit divine who in the way
Of going up directs us without asking
And who with his own light himself conceals.

* * * * *

Accord we our feet, to such inviting
Let us make haste to mount ere it grow dark;
For then we could not till the day return."
(XVII, 55.)

Lightened of the third P the poet passes from the circle of the wrathful
up the fourth stairway. Here he takes the opportunity to engage Virgil
in conversation regarding love as the seed of the capital sins. These
sins, it may be remarked in passing, are not always mortal sins, though
many Dantian editors make the mistake of so classifying them. It is to
be observed that on all the stairways of Purgatory there is a conference
between the two poets on things likely to be of interest to Dante, in
the matter of his salvation. At the end of the present conference Dante
falls into slumber, from which he is aroused by the racing activity of
the souls of the slothful, shouting instances of zeal and energy.

Sloth is defined by St. Thomas Aquinas as sadness and torpor in the face
of some spiritual good which one has to achieve, and a preacher of our
day modernizes that definition to mean, the "don't-care-feeling" in the
presence of duty. The sin is unlisted in modern treatises on Ethics,
the writers of which see in its symptoms only indications of
melancholia, neurasthenia or pellagra. But according to the scholastic
classification still followed in this matter by the Catholic Church,
sloth is to be considered as a specific vice opposed to the great
commandment to love God with our whole heart.

So Dante estimates it in his scheme of punishment, representing the
souls crying out in their diligence, "Haste, haste, let no time be lost
through little love." These souls are condemned to rush round and round
at the topmost speed, those in front proclaiming instances of alacrity,
viz., how the Blessed Virgin hastened to the hill country to visit
Elizabeth and how Julius Caesar hurried to subdue Lerida. Those in the
rear recall examples of sloth, viz., how the Israelites through
wandering in the desert lost the Promised Land, and how the Trojans who
dallied in Sicily gave themselves up to a life inglorious. Dante's
slothful souls are startlingly swift in their action. One of them, the
Abbot Zeno giving directions for ascent to Virgil and reprobating the
sins of his successors in the monastery is out of hearing as soon as he
speaks: "If more be said or if he was silent I know not, so far already
had he raced beyond us" (XVIII, 127).

The reader will not fail to note that the terrace of the slothful is
the only circle of Purgatory where there is no request for intercessory
prayer and that Dante here never speaks to any of those souls. Is that
because the poet wishes us to understand that his own sentiment is that
they do not deserve to be prayed for who neglected through sloth to pray
for themselves and that his own silence in their presence is indicative
of his disregard for souls so stained?

To foreshow the sins to be treated on the three upper terraces, where
are punished those who yielded to the sins of the body, Dante represents
himself as tempted by a Siren. She is described as ugly and repulsive
and then becoming, under the gaze of the beholder, fair and alluringly
attractive--a description, perhaps, unconsciously reproduced by Pope
when he wrote:

"Vice is a monster of so frightful mien
As to be hated needs but to be seen.
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face
We first endure, then pity, then embrace."

Saved from the Siren by a noble lady (perhaps Lucia, Illuminating Grace)
and Virgil, the poet is brooding upon the dream which has brought to his
senses the pleasures of the world, when his guide admonishes him how
salvation from sin's seduction is to be had--viz., by using worldly
things as things to be trodden under foot, while the mind is raised to
Heaven, God's lure to draw it upward.

"Didst thou behold, that old enchantress
Who sole above us henceforth is lamented?
Didst thou behold how man is free from her?
Suffice it thee, and smite earth with thy heels,
Thine eyes lift upward to the lure, that whirls
The Eternal King with revolutions vast."
(XIX, 58.)

On the fifth terrace our poets find the shades of the avaricious and the
prodigals. They lie face to the ground, bound hand and foot, recalling
during the night instances of avarice and during the day proclaiming the
praise of liberality, as manifested in the Blessed Virgin, the pagan
Fabricius and St. Nicholas. The latter is identified in the United
States and some other countries, with the popular Santa Claus. Dante
says of St. Nicholas that "the spirit went on to speak of the bounty
which Nicholas gave to the maidens, to lead their youth to honor" (XX,
32). The allusion is to the legend that this Bishop of Myra secretly
threw at different times into the windows of the home of three destitute
maidens, bags of gold sufficient to provide them with dowries without
which they would have been forced by poverty to a life of shame. In the
realm of the avaricious and the prodigals, Dante addresses one of the
repentent souls: "Spirit, who thou wast and why ye have your backs
turned upward, tell me" (XX, 94).

The answer of the shade of Pope Adrian IV, who died thirty-nine days
after his election to the supreme pontificate without having been
crowned, is one of the fine passages of the poem.

"And he to me: 'Why Heaven makes us turn our backs to it, thou
shalt learn: but first know that I was the successor of Peter.
Between Siestri and Chiaveri there rushes down a fair river and
from its name the title of my race takes its proudest distinction.
For one month and a little more I experienced how heavily the great
mantle weighs on him who keeps it out of the mire, so much so that
all the other burdens seem but feathers. My conversion alas! was
tardy; but when I had become the Roman pastor then I discovered how
false life is. In it I found that the heart had no repose nor was
it possible to rise higher in that life; wherefore the desire for
this (immortal life) was kindled in me. Up to that time, I was a
wretched soul and severed from God, wholly given up to Avarice. Now
as thou seest I am punished for it here. What is the effect of
Avarice is here made manifest in the purgation of the converted
souls, and the mountain has no more bitter penalty, as our eyes
fixed on earthly things, were not lifted up on high, even so has
justice sunk them to the ground in this place. Even as Avarice
quenched our love for every good, wherefore our works were lost, so
justice doth hold us fast, bound and seized by feet and hands; and
so long as it shall be the pleasure of the just Lord, so long shall
we lie here motionless and outstretched.'" (XIX, 97.)

At this point occurs one of those delightful surprises full of realism,
that Dante uses from time to time to heighten the reader's interest. The
poet has just learned that the spirit before him is Pope Adrian IV. At
once Dante falls on his knees to pay homage to the high office of the
Roman Pontiff, and he is about to say according to the conjecture of
Benvenuto "Holy Father, I entreat your holiness to excuse my natural
ignorance, for I was not aware of your being Pope." But the spirit bids
the poet arise, telling him that in the spirit world the dignities and
relations of this life are abolished.

"I on my knees had fallen and wished to speak;
But even as I began and he was aware,
Only by listening, of my reverence,
'What cause,' he said, 'has downward bent thee thus?'
And I told him: 'For your dignity,
Standing, my conscience stung me with remorse.'
'Straighten thy legs, and upward raise thee, brother,'
He answered, 'Err not, fellow servant am I
With thee and with the others to one power
If e'er that holy, evangelic sound
Which sayeth _neque nubent_, thou hast heard
Well canst thou see why in this wise I speak.'"
(XIX, 127.)

In this part of Purgatory Dante treats his readers to two other
instances of surprise. The first case which also makes use of the
dramatic quality of suspense, postponing the explanation to the
following canto in order to prolong the eager expectation of the reader,
narrates the occurrence of a wonderful phenomenon, the shaking of the
mountain of Purgatory, accompanied by a harmonious outburst of joyful
thanksgiving.

* * * * *

"We were striving to surmount the way so far as was permitted to our power
when I felt the mountain quake like a thing which is falling; whereupon a
chill gripped me, as is wont to grip him who is given to death. Of a surety
Delos was not shaken so violently ere Latona made her nest therein to give
birth to heaven's two eyes. Then began on all sides a shout, such that the
Master drew toward me saying: 'Fear not while I do guide thee.' _Gloria in
Excelsis Deo_ all were saying, by what I understood from those near by,
whose cry could be heard. Motionless we stood and in suspense, like the
shepherds who first heard that hymn, until the quaking ceased and it was
ended. Then we took up again our holy way, looking at the shades, that lay
on the ground already returned to their wonted plaint. No ignorance, if my
memory err not in this, did ever with so great assault give me yearning for
knowledge, I then seemed to have while pondering: nor by reason of our
haste was I bold to ask; nor of myself could I see aught there; thus I went
on timid and pensive."

His curiosity is satisfied in an unexpected way. "The natural thirst which
never is sated, save with the water whereof the poor Samaritan woman asked
the grace, was burning within me--and lo, even as Luke writes to us that
Christ appeared to the two who were on the way, already risen from the
mouth of the tomb, a shade appeared to us saying: 'My brothers God give you
peace.' Quickly we turned us and Virgil gave back to him the sign that is
fitting thereto. Then began, 'May the true court that binds me in eternal
exile, bring thee peace to the council of the blest.' 'How,' said he, and
meantime we met sturdily, 'If ye are shades that God deigns not above, who
hath escorted you so far by his stairs'? And my Teacher: 'If thou lookest
at the marks which this man bears and which the angel outlines clearly
wilt thou see 'tis meet he reign with the good.... Wherefore I was brought
from Hell's wide jaws to guide him and I will guide him onward, so far as
my school can lead him. But tell us, if thou knowest, why the mount gave
before such quakings and wherefore all seemed to shout with one voice down
to its soft base.'"

It was the very question Dante had been yearning to utter.

"Thus, by asking did he thread the very needle of my desire and with the
pope alone my thirst was made less fasting."

* * * * *

The spirit, Statius by name, who has just obtained his release from
Purgatorial confinement to ascend to Heaven, states that the earthquake
was not due to natural causes, such as strong dry vapors producing wind,
but was caused by spiritual elements operative upon a soul's completing
the penance and term assigned.

* * * * *

"It quakes here when some soul feeleth herself cleansed, so that she may
rise up or set forth, to mount on high, and such a shout follows her. Of
the cleansing the will alone gives proof, which fills the soul, all free to
change her cloister, and avails her to will.... And I who have lain under
this torment five hundred years and more, only now felt free will for a
better threshold. Therefore didst thou feel the earthquake and hear the
pious spirits about the mount give praises to the Lord."

* * * * *

This Statius was a Roman poet who died in the year 96. His term in
Purgatory therefore has lasted a little more than eleven centuries. The
next longest period mentioned by Dante is that of Duke Hugh Capet who
has been in Purgatory over 350 years with his purification still
incomplete. Statius by Dante's poetic invention is represented first as
saved through the influence of Virgil's poems and then is shown to be a
Christian, having been led to embrace Christianity both from the heroic
example of the martyrs and from his meditation on Virgil's prophecy of
the Cumaean Sibyl interpreted in the Middle Ages to refer to Christ. In
the Divina Commedia Statius pays a glowing tribute to the AEneid and its
author, wholly ignorant that he is addressing Virgil himself. "Of the
AEneid I speak which was a mother to me and was to me a nurse in poesy
... and to have lived yonder when Virgil was alive, I would consent to
one sun more than I need perform." Dante is all aquiver to surprise
Statius with the information that Virgil is at hand, "but Virgil turned
to me with a look that silently said, 'be silent.'"

"But the power which wills
Bears not supreme control: laughter and tears
Follow so closely on the passion prompts them,
They wait not for the motions of the will
In nature most sincere. I did but smile,
As one who winks; and thereupon the shade
Broke off, and peer'd into mine eyes, where best
Our looks interpret. 'So to good event
Mayst thou conduct such great emprize,' he cried,
'Say, why across thy visage beam'd, but now,
The lightning of a smile.' On either part
Now am I straiten'd; one conjures me speak,
The other to silence binds me; whence a sigh
I utter, and the sigh is heard. 'Speak on,'
The teacher cried 'and do not fear to speak:
But tell him what so earnestly he asks.'
Whereon I thus: 'Perchance, O ancient spirit
Thou marvel'st at my smiling. There is room
For yet more wonder. He, who guides my ken
On high, he is that Mantuan, led by whom
Thou didst presume of men and gods to sing.
If other cause thou deem'dst for which I smiled,
Leave it as not the true one: and believe
Those words, thou spakest of him, indeed the cause.'
Now down he bent to embrace my teacher's feet;
But he forbade him: 'Brother! do it not:
Thou art a shadow, and behold'st a shade.'
He, rising, answer'd thus: 'Now hast thou proved
The force and ardor of the love I bear thee,
When I forget we are but things of air,
And, as a substance, treat an empty shade.'"
(XXI, 106.)

On the sixth terrace Dante with five P's removed, accompanied by Virgil
sees the souls of those who sinned by gluttony. They are an emaciated
crowd obliged to pass and repass before a fruit-laden tree bedewed with
clear water from a fountain, without being able to satisfy their hunger
or quench their thirst. Voices from this tree proclaim examples of
temperance; voices from another tree equally tantalizing, declare
examples of gluttony.

"People I saw beneath it (the tree) lift their hands
And cry I know not what towards the leaves,
Like little children eager and deluded,
Who pray, and he they pray to doth not answer
But, to make very keen their appetite
Holds their desire aloft and hides it not.
Then they departed as if undeceived."
(XXIV, 106.)

Here Dante recognizes among the gaunt attenuated figures of the
penitents, Forese Donati, his intimate friend and kinsman of his wife
Gemma. Our poet was surprised to find him so soon after his death on
one of the terraces of Purgatory, the assumption being that because of
his delay of conversion to the end of his life Forese would be in
Outer Purgatory for a term equal in duration to the length of his life
on earth. But the reason he had come so quickly to Purgatory is to be
found in the efficacy of the prayers of his widow for the repose of
his soul.

"Then answered he: 'That now I wander reaping
The bitter sweat of all this punishment
My Nella gained for me, her vigil keeping
In prayer devout and infinite lament.
Thus, here, beyond that shore of waiting sent,
I landed, from the lower circles freed.
And that more dear to God omnipotent
Lives on my little widow, is the meed
Of the lone life she spends in many a saintly deed.'"
(XXXIII, 85.)

Before ascending to the seventh and last terrace Dante describes how
the angel of abstinence removed the sixth P.

"And as the harbinger of early dawn,
The air of May doth move and breathe out fragrance
Impregnate all with herbage and with flowers,
So did I feel a breeze strike in the midst
My front, and felt the moving of the plumes
That breathed around an odor of ambrosia;
And heard it said; Blessed are they whom grace
So much illumines that the love of taste
Excites not in their breasts too great desire,
Hungering at all times so far as is just."
(XXIV, 145.)

And now our penitent as he reaches the seventh terrace, where sins
against the virtue of purity are expiated, enters upon the last stage of
his purification. Here the spirits pass and repass through the midst of
intensely hot flames, proclaiming examples of chastity. It is worthy of
note that this terrace is the only place in Dante's Purgatory where fire
is the punitive agent--a conception of our poet all the more remarkable
because it runs counter to the view commonly held by the churchmen in
the West, including St. Augustine, St. Gregory the Great, St. Thomas
Aquinas, St. Bonaventure, who teach that fire is the cleansing element
of all Purgatory. That indeed is only a theological opinion. The Church
itself, as the Greeks were assured at the Council of Florence, has never
put forth any dogmatic decree on the subject.

Bidden by the angel to enter the fire, Dante draws back paralysed with
fear. Scenes of burning at the stake come with horror to his mind. He
probably recalls also that Florence had condemned him to be burned
alive. So, for the first time in Purgatory he recoils at the penance he
must perform. Impassionately Virgil exhorts him. The stubborn pupil
yields only at the utterance of Beatrice's name. For love of her he will
endure the flame.

"The Mantuan spake: 'My son,
Here torment thou mayst feel, but canst not death.
Remember thee, remember thee, if I
Safe e'en on Geryon brought thee; now I come
More near to God, wilt thou not trust me now?
Of this be sure; though in its womb that flame
A thousand years contain'd thee, from thy head
No hair should perish. If thou doubt my truth,
Approach; and with thy hands thy vesture's hem
Stretch forth, and for thyself confirm belief.
Lay now all fear, oh! lay all fear aside.
Turn hither, and come onward undismay'd.'
I still, though conscience urged, no step advanced.
When still he saw me fix'd and obstinate,
Somewhat disturb'd he cried: 'Mark now, my son,
From Beatrice thou art by this wall
Divided.' As at Thisbe's name the eye
Of Pyramus was open'd (when life ebb'd
Fast from his veins) and took one parting glance,
While vermeil dyed the mulberry; thus I turned
To my sage guide, relenting, when I heard
The name that springs for ever in my breast.
He shook his forehead; and, 'How long,' he said,
'Linger we now'? then smiled, as one would smile
Upon a child that eyes the fruit and yields.
Into the fire before me then he walk'd;
And Statius, who erewhile no little space
Had parted us, he pray'd to come behind,
I would have cast me into molten glass
To cool me, when I entered; so intense
Raged the conflagrant mass. The sire beloved,
To comfort me, as he proceeded, still
Of Beatrice talk'd. 'Her eyes,' saith he,
'E'en now I seem to view.' From the other side
A voice, that sang did guide us; and the voice
Following, with heedful ear, we issued forth,
There where the path led upward. 'Come,' we heard,
'Come blessed of my Father.'"
(Canto, XXVII, 20.)

On emerging from the fire and on the very threshold of the Garden of
Eden, Dante is addressed by Virgil, no longer competent to guide him
higher. The Mantuan in touching words tells his disciple that having
passed through Purgatory he needs no other guide than his own will,
upright and sound, until he passes under the tutelage of Beatrice.

"The temporal fire and the eternal
Son, thou hast seen, and to a place art come
Where of myself no farther I discern.
By intellect and art I here have brought thee;
Take thine own pleasure for thy guide henceforth;
Beyond the steep ways and the narrow art thou.
Expect no more or word or sign from me;
Free and upright and sound is thy free will,
And error were it not to do its bidding
Thee o'er thyself I therefore crown and mitre."
(XXVII, 127.)

Brother Azarias gives us the mystical sense of this passage. "The soul
has conquered; therefore Virgil leaves the poet free from the dominion
of his passions; more than free, a king crowned triumphant over himself;
more than a king, a mitred priest, ruling the cloister of his heart, his
thoughts and his affections and mediator and intercessor before Divine
Mercy for himself and those commending themselves to his prayers."

So crowned and mitred over himself Dante now enters the Garden of Eden.

"Here did the parents of mankind dwell in innocence; here is there
perpetual spring and every fruit."

In the forest of Eden is a pure stream with two currents, Lethe and
Eunoe, "the first has the power of all past sins the memory to erase,
the other can restore remembrance of good deeds and pious days." On the
banks of this stream the poet sees Matilda, who represents the Active
Life.

"There appeared to me a lady all alone who went along singing and
selecting from among the flowers wherewith all her path was enamelled"
... suddenly "the lady turned completely round towards me, saying, 'My
Brother, look and listen'" (XXIX, 15). A solemn chant is heard, a
wonderful light is seen. It is a pageant representing the return of
mankind to Eden through membership in the Church.

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