where assemble those who die in mortal sin, to be ferried over by the
demon Charon. He refuses passage to Dante: "By other ways, by other
ferries, shalt thou pass over, a lighter boat must carry thee." (Inf.,
III, 91.) An earthquake occurs, accompanied with wind and lightning, and
Dante falls into a state of insensibility. Upon coming to consciousness
he finds himself on the brink of the Abyss, whence the poets enter
Limbo. Here Christ descended, Virgil says, and "drew from us the shade
of our first parent, of Abel, his son; that of Noah, of Moses, the
lawgiver, the obedient; patriarch Abraham and King David; Israel, with
his father, and with his sons and with Rachel, for whom he wrought much,
and many others and made them blessed." (Inf., IV, 55.)
In the second circle, where carnal sinners are punished, Dante sees,
among others, Semiramis, Dido, Cleopatra, Helen, Achilles, Paris. The
poet's attention is suddenly attracted by two spirits, who prove to be
Francesca da Rimini and her lover, Paolo, murdered by her husband when
Dante was twenty-four years old. The scandal of their illicit love and
the penalty they paid by their lives must have been so generally known
that Dante, though attached to her family by the memory of hospitality
received from her nephew, Guido Novello da Polenta, the lord of Ravenna,
is dominated by the necessity of declaring in Francesca and Paolo the
operation of the unalterable law which rules the terrible consequences
of crime unforgiven by Heaven. Was it gratitude for kindness extended to
him, an exile, by the Lord of Ravenna, or was it the memory of
association with the brother of Francesca, at the battle of Campaldino,
that led our poet to treat the whole episode of the fatal liaison with
such tender sympathy for the unfortunate lady that he hoped to
rehabilitate her memory? In any event, the poet represents himself as
gracious and benign when addressing Francesca, and she, moved by his
friendly attitude, tells the story of her intrigue, in lines justly
regarded as the most beautiful ever written in verse. The reader will
not fail to observe that the fatal denouement is only hinted, not
told--the line, "that day we read no more," making what is admitted to
be the finest ellipsis in all the literature of the world.
"Then turning, I to them, my speech address'd
And thus began: 'Francesca! Your sad fate
Even to tears my grief and pity moves.
But tell me, in the time of your sweet sighs,
By what and how Love granted that ye knew
Your yet uncertain wishes.' She replied:
'No greater grief than to remember days
Of joy, when misery is at hand. Yet so eagerly
If thou art bent to know the primal root
From whence our love gat being, I will do
As one who weeps and tells his tale. One day
For our delight, we read of Lancelot,
How him love thrall'd. Alone we were, and no
Suspicion near us. Oft times by that reading
Our eyes were drawn together, and the hue
Fled from our alter'd cheek. But at one point
Alone we fell. When of that smile, we read,
The wish'd smile so rapturously kiss'd
By one so deep in love, then he who ne'er
From me shall separate, at once my lips
All trembling kiss'd. The book and writer both
Were love's purveyors. In its leaves that day
We read no more.' While thus one spirit spake,
The other wail'd so sorely, that heart-struck
I through compassion fainting, seem'd not far
From death, and like a corse fell to the ground."
In the next circle where, with faces to the ground, the gluttons suffer
in a ceaseles storm, the shade of Ciacco, the Florentine, sits up as he
recognizes a fellow-citizen:
"He said to me: 'Thy City which is filled
With envy, like a sack that overflows,
Once held me in its tranquil life, well skilled
In dainties, and a glutton, and by those
Who dwelt there Ciacco called, but now the blows
Of this fierce rain avenge my wasteful sin.
Sad as I am, full many another knows
For a like crime like penalty within
This circle', and more word he spake not." (VI, 49.)
In the fourth circle the poet sees the souls of the prodigal and
avaricious rolling heavy stones, against each other with mutual
recriminations:
"Almighty Justice! in what store thou heap'st
New pains, new troubles, as I here beheld,
Wherefore doth fault of ours bring us to this?
E'en as a billow, on Charybdis rising
Against encountered billow dashing breaks;
Such is the dance this wretched race must lead
Whom more than elsewhere numerous here I found."
(VII, 19.)
The next is the circle of the wrathful and the sullen. Following is the
circle of the materialists and heretics, all covered with burning
sepulchres:
"Soon as I was within, I cast around
My eyes and saw extend on either hand
A spacious plain, that echoed to the sound
Of grief and torment sore; as o'er the land
At Aries where Rhone's vast waters stagnant stand
Or Pola, near Quarnero Bay, that bounds
And bathes the line of Italy, expand
Plains rough and heaving with supulchral mounds,
'Tis thus the plain, wherein I stood, with tombs abounds,
Save that the buried were more grimly treated.
For twixt the graves were scattered tongues of fire
By which to such a pitch the place was heated
That iron could no fiercer flame require
For art to mould it: lamentation dire
Issued from each unlidded vault, and seemed
The voice of those in torment."
From one of these fiery tombs, the Florentine freethinker, the haughty
Farinata, rises "with breast and brow erect, as holding Hell in great
contempt," and tells Dante that the souls of the lost have no knowledge
concerning things that are actually passing on earth, though they know
the past and see the future. He foretells the duration of the poet's
exile and boasts that he himself saved Florence from being razed to the
ground.
"When all decreed that Florence should be laid
in ruin I alone with fearless face defended her."
(X, 91.)
In the seventh circle Virgil leads Dante to the river of blood, "in
which boils every one who by violence injures others." Centaurs, half
horses and half men, are there. "Around the fosse they go by thousands,
piercing with their arrows whatever spirit wrenches itself out of the
blood farther than its guilt has allotted for it." (XII, 73.) With
characteristic realism the poet describes Chiron, one of the leaders of
the Centaurs, pushing back with an arrow his beard as he prepares to
speak:
"Chiron took an arrow, and with the notch put back his beard upon
his jaws. When he had uncovered his great mouth, he said to his
companions: 'Have ye perceived that the one behind (Dante) moves
what he touches? The feet of the dead are not wont to do so.'"
(XII, 76.)
In the third round of Circle VII Dante meets his friend Brunetto Latini,
punished for unnatural offences.
"I remembered him and toward his face
My hand inclining, answered: Ser Brunetto!
And are ye here? He thus to me: 'My son!
Oh let it not displease thee, if Brunetto
Latini but a little space with thee
Turn back, and leave his fellows to proceed.'
I thus to him replied: 'Much as I can,
I thereto pray thee: and if thou be willing
That I here seat me with thee, I consent:
His leave with whom I journey, first obtain'd.'
'O Son,' said he, 'whoever of this throng
One instant stops, lies then a hundred years,
No fan to ventilate him, when the fire
Smitest sorest. Pass thou therefore on. I close
Will at thy garments walk and then rejoin
My troup, who go mourning their endless doom.'"
* * * * *
"Were all my wish fulfill'd," I straight replied,
Thou from the confines of man's nature yet
Hadst not been driven forth; for in my mind
Is fix'd, and now strikes full upon my heart,
The dear, benign, paternal image, such
As thine was, when so lately thou didst teach me
The way for man to win eternity:
And how I prized the lesson, it behoves,
That, long as life endures, my tongue should speak.
(XV, 28.)
The eighth circle is known as Malebolge, Evil Pouches, of which there
are ten. Here are punished differently panders, seducers, flatterers,
simonists, magicians, cheats, hypocrites, thieves, evil-counsellors,
forgers.
In the ninth circle, the abode of traitors, which comprises four
divisions, named respectively after Cain (Caina), Antenor of Troy
(Antenora), Ptolemy of Jericho (Tolomea), and Judas Iscariot (Giudecca),
Dante sees in the second division, Antenora, the shade of the traitor
Ugolino imprisoned in ice with his enemy, Archbishop Ruggieri, by whom
he was betrayed. Ugolino, with his two sons and two grandsons, were
locked in the Tower of Famine at Pisa, the key of the prison was thrown
into the river and the prisoners began their term of starvation ending
in death. The story of the imprisonment and the death of the five
prisoners is one of the most tragic recitals in the domain of
literature. In the passage I quote, Ugolino is relating his feelings
when he finds himself imprisoned with his sons and grandsons in the
Tower of Famine.
"When I awoke before the morn, that day,
I heard my little sons, who shared my cell,
For bread, even in their slumber, moaning pray;
Hard art thou, if unmoved thou hearest me tell
The message that my heart had guessed too well!
If this thou feel not, what can make thee feel?
And when we all were risen, the hour befell
At which was brought to us the morning meal,
Yet each one doubted sore what might their dreams reveal.
And as the locking of the gate I heard
Beneath that terrible tower, I gazed alone
Into my children's faces, without a word.
I wept not, for within I turned to stone;
But saw that they were weeping every one;
'Twas then my darling little Anselm cried:
'You look so, father! Say, what have they done?'
Still not a tear I shed, nor word replied
That day, nor till that night in next day's dawning died.
And as there shot into this prison drear
A little sunbeam, by whose light I caught
My look upon four faces mirrored clear;
Both of my hands I bit, by grief o'erwrought.
Then suddenly they rose as if they thought
I did it hungering; 'Less our misery,'
They cried, 'Should'st thou on us feed, who are nought
But creatures vested in our flesh by thee:
Then strip away the weeds that still thine own must be.'
It calmed me to make them feel less their fate;
Two days we spent in silence all forlorn;
Earth, Earth, oh wherefore wert thou obdurate,
And would'st not open! On the following morn
Gaddo, before my face, from life was torn!
'Can you not help me, father?' first he cried,
And perished; then, I saw the younger born,
Three, one by one, fall ere the sixth day sped--
Plainly as you see me, and this accursed head.
'Already blind, I fondly grope my way
To them, and for three days their names I call
After their death; then famine found its prey
And did what sorrow could not.' This was all
He said."
(XXXIII, 35.)
And now we come with the poets to the lowest depths of Hell, where we
see imprisoned in ice Lucifer, huge and hideous. As we gaze on mankind's
enemy, an archangel fallen and punished for sin, the words of Isaias
come to mind: "How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, who did'st
rise in the morning! How art thou fallen to the earth, that did'st wound
the nations. And thou saidst within thy heart, 'I will ascend into
Heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God--I will be like
the most High. But yet thou shalt be brought down to Hell, into the very
depth of the pit." (Is., XIV, 12.)
Let us see how Dante puts Lucifer "into the very depth of the pit."
"The lamentable kingdom's emperor
Issued from out the ice with half his breast;
And with a giant more do I compare
Than with his arms do giants; therefore see
How great must be that whole which corresponds
Unto a part so fashioned. If he was
As beautiful as he is ugly now,
And raised his brows against his Maker, sure
All sorrowfulness must proceed from him.
Ah! how great marvel unto me it seemed
When I beheld three faces to his head!
The one before, and that was vermeil-hue;
Two were the others which adjoined to this,
Over the midst of either shoulder, and
They made the joining where the crown is placed.
And between white and yellow seemed the right;
The left was such an one to be beheld
As come from there wherein the Nile is sunk.
There issued under each two mighty wings,
Such as 'twas fitting for so great a bird:
I never saw the sails of shipping such.
They had not feathers, but the mode thereof
Was like a bat's; and these he fluttered so
That from him there was moved a threefold wind:
Cocytus all was frozen over hence.
With six eyes wept he, and three chins along
The weeping trickled, and a bloody foam.
At every mouth he shattered with his teeth
A sinner, in the manner of a brake,
So that he thus made woful three of them.
The biting for the foremost one was nought
Unto the scratching, for at times the spine
Remained of all the skin completely stripped.
'That soul above which has most punishment
Is,' said my lord, 'Judas Iscariot,
Who has his head within, and outside plies
His legs. O' the other two, whose head is down,
Brutus is he who from the black head hangs;
See how he writhes, and does not speak a word:
The other's Cassius, who appears, so gaunt,'"
(XXXIV, 28-67)
Now that the lesson is learned that the wages of sin is death, that sin
will find a man out and bring him to the judgment of God, the gracious
guide can release his companion from his awful contemplation.
"Now it is time for us to go," says Virgil, "for we have seen all." By a
secret path leading to Purgatory the pilgrims make their way through the
darkness, guided by the encouraging murmur of running water. It is a
streamlet of discarded sin, flowing constantly from Purgatory, whence
wickedness is washed down to its original Satanic source.
"By that hidden way
My guide and I did enter, to return
To the fair world; and heedless of repose
We climb'd, he first, I following his steps,
Till on our view the beautiful lights of Heaven
Dawn'd through a circular opening in the cave
Thence issuing we again beheld the stars."
DANTE'S PURGATORIO
DANTE'S PURGATORIO
Purgatory, as a doctrine, is peculiar to the Catholic Church; Purgatory,
as a discipline from sin to virtue, is a practice followed by a large
portion of humanity. The latter fact explains why so many who reject the
dogma, still love and admire Dante's Purgatorio, which, while it teaches
the doctrine of the intermediate state, also serves as an allegory, the
most helpful and beautiful allegory, perhaps, in the literature of the
world. In the opinion of Dean Stanley, it is the most religious book he
ever read. It makes a peculiar appeal to the modern mind because, as
Grandgent says: "It's theme is betterment, release from sin and
preparation for Heaven" ... (and) "its atmosphere is rightly one of hope
and progress."
Dinsmore declares: "Purgatory as a place may not exist in our system of
thought, but life is a cleansing process if we take its hardships in a
proper spirit." In another place he asserts: "In pondering the way of
life by which this high priest of the Middle Ages (Dante) proclaims that
men attain perfect liberty, we cannot but remark the stress he lays
upon a principle which has well-nigh faded from the Protestant mind. It
is that of expiation--(and) expiation is no musty dogma of the
schoolmen, but a living truth.... Dante placed more emphasis on the
human side of the problem than we, and for this reason he deserves
attentive study, having portrayed most powerfully some truths which our
age, so eager to break from the narrowness of the past, has overlooked."
In agreement with this statement of the learned Congregational divine is
William T. Harris, former United States Commissioner of Education, who
observes in his "Spiritual Sense of the Divina Commedia," that if
Purgatory is absent from the Protestant creed, the thought of which
Purgatory in this life is the symbol, is not uncommon in non-Catholic
literature. His exact words are: "If Protestantism has omitted Purgatory
from its religion, certainly Protestant literature has taken it up and
absorbed it entire," and for proof he points to the moral, among other
books, of The Scarlet Letter, The Marble Faun, Adam Bede and Romola, all
showing
"That men may rise on stepping stones
Of their dead selves to higher things."
Dante, the theologian, makes his allegory grow out of the doctrine of
Purgatory. According to the teaching of the Catholic Church, temporal
punishment is connected with sin. Even when the guilt of sin is
forgiven, the justice of God in most cases calls for amends by means of
the temporal punishment of the sinner. Holy Writ gives us instances of
the operation of this law. Adam, though brought out of his disobedience
(Wisdom X, 2) was condemned "to eat bread in the sweat of his face"
(Gen. III, 19) to his dying day. Moses and Aaron were forgiven for their
sin of incredulity, but they were punished by being deprived of the
glory of entering "the Land of Promise." (Num., XX, 12.) To King David,
perfectly contrite, the prophet Nathan announces in the name of God, the
forgiveness of the guilt of adultery and murder, yet he must suffer for
his sin. "Nathan said to David: 'The Lord also hath taken away thy sin.
Thou shalt not die. Nevertheless, because thou hast given occasion to
the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme for this thing, the child shall
die,' and it came to pass on the seventh day that the child died" (II
Kings XII, 13.)
From these instances it is evident that when God forgives the guilt of
sins and the eternal punishment due to such of them as are mortal, He
does not remove the temporal punishment which must be satisfied in this
life or in the life to come. That is true, the Church teaches, even of
unrepented venial sin with its debt of temporal punishment. While
venial sin does not destroy the supernatural life of the soul and while,
therefore, it is not said to be punishable in Hell, still it is sin in
the sight of Him "whose eyes are too pure to behold evil." (Hab., I,
13.) Now the Church has ever held that into Heaven "there shall not
enter anything defiled." (Apoc., XXI, 27.) Likewise, she has taught that
Hell is the eternal punishment of souls whose grievous guilt has not
been forgiven. It follows, therefore, according to her teachings, that
there must be a middle state for the cleansing of unrepented venial sins
and for the satisfaction of sins already forgiven but not wholly
expiated.
This state or place is called Purgatory, the belief in the existence of
which is confirmed by the practice of praying for the dead, a practice
based on the teachings of the Old and of the New Testament. In the
second book of Maccabees (XII, 43, 46) we read that Judas, the general
of the Hebrew army, "sent twelve thousand drachms of silver to Jerusalem
for sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the dead, thinking well and
religiously concerning the resurrection. (For if he had not hoped that
they that were slain should rise again, it would have seemed superfluous
and vain to pray for the dead.) And because he considered that they who
had fallen asleep with godliness had great grace laid up for them. It
is, therefore, a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that
they may be loosed from sins."
This doctrine presupposes that the dead for whom prayer is profitable
are neither in Heaven, the abode of the elect, nor in Hell, from which
release is not possible, but in a state of purification, lasting for a
time. The New Testament alludes to that state. Christ declares: "And
whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be
forgiven him; but he that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall
not be forgiven him, neither in this world nor in the world to come."
(Matt., XII, 32.) These words imply that there is a future state in
which some sins are purged away, while there is another state (Hell) in
which the punishment is eternal. The words of St. Paul: "If any man's
work burn, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so
as by fire" (1 Cor., III, 15), are interpreted to mean the existence of
a middle state in which unforgiven venial sins and the temporal
punishment due to sin will be burnt away and the soul thus purified will
attain eternal life.
To state the doctrine of the Church briefly, let it be said that the
Church has defined that there is a Purgatory and that the souls in
Purgatory are helped by the suffrages of the faithful.
Out of facts so general, Dante the poet, has created a Purgatory wholly
unique in the realms of literature, and amazingly definite as to place,
form, atmosphere, inhabitants and their activities. In the southern
hemisphere, at the very antipodes of Jerusalem, out of an ocean on which
there is no other land (according to Dante's system of cosmography)
springs the island of Purgatory, redolent with flowers, lovely with
music, peace keeping pace with penance over all the region. Not a flat,
unbroken plain is this island, but a mountain whose shores are washed by
the ocean, from which the earth forced from the interior by Lucifer's
fall, rises in a truncated conical structure. While its coast and the
land below the terraces are within the zone of air, its heights extend
into the sphere of fire and its crown is the Garden of Eden. The lowest
part of the mountain called Ante-Purgatorio is the abode of the
procrastinators and the excommunicated who put off their repentance to
the end and now must suffer a proportionate delay before they are
permitted to begin their ascent, their work of purification.
Purification begins only after the soul passes into Purgatory proper. At
the entrance is St. Peter's gate, guarded by an angel, who, with his
sword inscribes on the brow of the penitent seven times the letter P,
the first letter of the word Peccatum, signifying sin. These seven P's,
outward signs of inward evil, represent the seven capital sins, the P's
of which are removed in succession by an angel as penance is done for
each sin on its corresponding terrace. The seven terraces which run
around the mountain, rise in succession with lessening circuit as ascent
is made, their width being about seventeen or eighteen feet. Connecting
each terrace and cut out of solid rock is a narrow stairway, guarded by
an angel. The steps of each successive stairway become less steep as
each terrace is attained. Crowning the mountain is the Garden of Eden,
lonely and deserted since Adam and Eve, after six hours of occupancy,
were forced from its confines. Its herbage is still luxuriant, its
flowers endless and fragrant, its trees, melodious with birds, rustle
with the balmy wind, its waters serve to irrigate the garden as well as
to help the soul. These waters, the rivers Lethe and Eunoe, are produced
from heavenly sources and have miraculous powers. The former removes the
memory of sin; the latter restores the recollection of virtuous deeds, a
poetical way of expressing the Catholic dogma, that with the revival of
grace in the heart of the converted sinner comes back the merit that had
been acquired by moral acts.
The problem which Dante sets out to solve in his Purgatory is this:
Assuming that the sinner has been baptized, how can he break his
shackles and attain to the liberty of the children of God? The literal
narrative of Dante's Purgatory presupposing that the soul at the hour of
death is in the state of grace, now shows us that soul working towards
perfection by way of expiation for unforgiven venial sin and for the
temporal punishment due to sin. It is the only way by which it can again
attain its pristine dignity. "And to his dignity he never returns," says
Dante, "unless where sin makes void, he fill up for evil pleasures just
penalties."
The rule holds good, also, for salvation in this world. The thin veil of
allegory enables us to penetrate Dante's teaching that this life also is
a Purgatory, and here, too, we may cast off the defilement of sin by
means of repentance and expiation. But first the soul must be girt with
the rush of humility, and have perfect contrition represented by its
being washed with the dew, the moisture that descends from Heaven. To
Virgil (Reason guided by Heaven) says Cato (the symbol of Liberty), "Go,
then, and see that thou gird this man with a smooth rush and that thou
wash his face (with dew) so that thou efface from it all foulness, for
it would not be fitting to go into the presence of the first Minister,
who is of those of Paradise, with eyes dimmed by any mist." (1, 95.)