Continuing through the Purgatorio with this second of three installments, this one covering cantos 12 to 22.
Canto XII
The first level: pride cont.
The opening of the canto finds Dante still walking along Oderisi as if yoked to him like oxen. But Virgil tells him he has passed enough time there, and now they must apply themselves and use whatever means possible to move on. While they proceed, Virgil tells Dante to look down, for they are beginning to pass over some engravings in the road that portray various scenes of pride. The first is Satan being cast down. The second is Briareus the Titan, laying slain after attempting to storm Olympus. Third is Apollo, Pallas, and Mars with Zeus, standing and looking over the slain Titans. Fourth is Nimrod dumbfounded by the results of his Tower of Babel. Fifth is Niobe, whose children were killed for her blasphemies against the gods. Sixth is Saul, dead from suicide rather than allowing himself to be killed by his enemies. Seventh is Arachne in misery after having challenged Athena to a weaving contest. Eighth is Rehoboam, whose pride severed Israel in two, and who, while attempting to assert control, was driven out. Ninth is Alcmaeon, who avenged his father by killing his mother, who betrayed her husband for a necklace. Tenth is Sennacherib, who taunted God most high and was then killed by his sons in the temple of his false god, after having suffered a humiliating defeat by the angel of the Lord. Eleventh is Tomyrus revenge on Cyrus for having arrogantly killed her son. Twelfth is Holofernes, the Assyrian envoy who presumed to banish the worship of Jehovah in Israel, decapitated and routed in battle. Thirteenth is Troy, defeated and palaces gutted, brought low for its pride.
Dante notes the sublime skill of workmanship that made him feel as if he had seen the events just as well as those who lived through them. Then he laments the pride of men, who walk through life without every really looking at what they are doing, symbolically displayed in his passage over these historical instances of pride judged.
An angel approaches the two travelers and Dante again uses a metaphoric description to tell the time- roughly noon. The angel invites them forward, then touches Dante’s forehead with his wing and ushers him forward to a stairway cut into the rock. Dante likens it to the ascent up to the San Miniato al Monte church in Florence, but also notices that the ascent is more relaxed than the last one. He asks Virgil why this is, and is told that the six remaining P’s have faded, but when they too are gone, like the first one is, Dante will not only not be tired, but he’ll actually be delighted to move upward. The first P, pride, is the basis of all the other sins, so with that removed, all the others have faded somewhat, hence they move much more lightly up the mountain.
Canto XIII
The second level: envy
Having ascended the staircase, Virgil and Dante find themselves on the second ledge, but there is no one there. Virgil decides to continue moving counter-clockwise rather than wait for someone to direct them, and after about a mile in, they hear voices coming from overhead, as if angels are flying over, and announcing things. The three phrases they hear are: 1) They have no wine; 2) I am Orestes; and 3) Love your enemies. Virgil explains that this level purges envy, and the cure for envy is love, so these phrases are repeated. The first is from Mary’s declaration to Jesus at the wedding of Cana, and symbolizes her seeking help for the welfare of others. The second is from Greek mythology when Orestes, having killed his mother and her lover for their betrayal of his father, is apprehended, and his friend steps forward claiming to be Orestes instead. The third is Jesus’ commandment to do good to your enemies, which is the opposite of envy, which is resentment aroused at the fortune of others.
As they move forward, they see a group of penitents calling out to various saints for help. They are covered with horsehair cloth mantles, and their eyes are sewn shut with iron wire. They are forced, through their blindness, to lean on each other to avoid falling over the edge, and so see the benefit of loving your neighbor, rather than being resentful towards him.
Dante addresses them to see if there is an Italian with whom he could speak, and Sapìa Salvani, a Sienese noblewoman answers. She acknowledges she was not, despite her name, wise. She found more joy in the misfortunes of others than in her own fortunes. And if it weren’t for the prayers of a saint named Pietro Pettinaio, she wouldn’t have made it to Purgatory. She asks who Dante is, being that he is still alive and his eyes are open. He says he is alive and asks her if she has any requests for him. She asks him to pray for her, since his entire journey must mean that he has received favor from God, and asks that her family also know her fate and pray for her. She ends with a backhanded prophecy, saying her family would be found among those vain Sienese hoping to establish a port at Talamone, but who would lose hope even more than they did in their fruitless search for the Diana, a legendary underground river/spring that the Sienese sought for years.
Canto XIV
The second level: envy cont.
The canto starts with two of the souls asking who Dante is. They aren’t named until half-way through the canto, but they are Guido del Duca and Rinieri da Calboli. Dante responds that he was born by the river that runs through Tuscany, but says giving his name would mean nothing since he is still relatively unknown. Guido notes that he must be speaking of the Arno. Rinieri asks why he hides the name of the river like one who is speaking of horrible things? Guido responds that he doesn’t know why, but the name of the Arno valley actually deserves to perish from its source on Mount Falterona (which he says is in the Appenines and gives a brief description of the mountain chain), to where it empties into the Mediterranean sea. Virtue is like an enemy to those that live there, who all flee it as if they had seen a snake. He is unsure whether it’s due to mere chance or human manufacture, but whatever the reason for it, the inhabitants have so changed their nature that it would almost seem that the witch Circe had turned them into pigs. He then describes the geographical and moral descent of the river. In the first portion of the river’s descent, through the Casentino valley, the residents are called ugly swine. Next he describes the residents of Arezzo as snarling dogs whose bark is worse than their bite. But as the river turns north towards Florence, the snarling dogs turn into wolves, where the valley is more cursed and unfortunate. Finally, the river passes Pisa, where Dante says the inhabitants are like foxes, so full of deceit and treachery they fear no ensnarement themselves.
Guido continues on with what he describes as a prophecy from the Spirit. He speaks of a grandson of his friend there, Fulcieri da Calboli, who will hunt and kill the wolves of Florence. The devastation though will be so great that it will not be of any honor to him. This causes great pain to his friend Ranieri.
Dante wants to know who these two men are, and Guido, stating that he will tell Dante who they are, even though Dante himself did them no such favor. He states that he was so full of envy while alive that it showed physically on his face if he ever saw someone happy. He notes that he was reaping now the harvest of what he had sown on earth, and asks a general question to humanity: Why do you set your hearts on what requires you to exclude from others? Since envy is the resentment over the good fortune of others, humans see the collection of goods to themselves as a zero-sum game. If another has it, it’s at my expense, which means that the envious heart is required to exclude others in order to grab as much for himself as possible.
He then introduces Rinieri, by stating that they were both from Romagna, where the territory is so full of vipers that even if it were to be cultivated, it’s too late to clear them out. Guido then launches into a list of great leaders in the ‘good ole days’, none of which would have any meaning for us today, but he is so disheartened by the lack of honesty and goodness in Romagna that he is actually happy that many of the evil lines are dying out. He then tells Dante he has said enough, and asks him to move on.
Dante and Virgil do move on, and as they get aways around the mountain, they hear first a voice like thunder saying: “Whoever finds me will kill me”. These are the words of Cain after the Lord banished him from Eden, and it is meant to act as a warning to the consequences of envy. The second is “I am Aglauros, who became a stone”; from Ovid’s retelling of Aglaurus, who was so jealous of her sister’s relationship with Mercury that she tried to block Mercury from going to her, and was turned to stone as a result. Virgil explains that such things are meant to act as a bit in the mouths of men, restraining them from going to such places. But men take the bait, and are then pulled all over the place by Satan. Virgil notes that heaven calls to us, and we can actually see its eternal beauty move all around us, but instead, we set our eyes only on earthly things, which causes Him to discipline and punish us.
Canto XV
The third level: wrath
Dante starts the canto off with a roundabout way of telling us it was around 3 in the afternoon. He says that from the time of the dawn to the third hour (so three hours), in that sphere which always looks like a child playing (the heavenly sphere of the ‘sky’, so “in the sky”), the sun had about that much time (3 hours) in its course across that sphere (the sky) before evening. Sunset would have been around 6p, so it was three hours before that, or… 3pm. He then mentions they had been traveling around the mountain and were headed towards the sunset, when he gets hit with a very strong reflected light. He then uses 9 lines to explain the light reflects back up at the same angle it comes down at, and so he got hit in the face with this reflected light. He can’t figure out what it is, and Virgil lets him know an angel is coming. The angel ushers them up a stairway that is less steep than the previous climbs, so both Dante and Virgil move up from the second level where envy is judged to the third level. On the way up, Dante asks what it was that the ‘spirit from Romagna’, Guido del Duca, meant when he said that men set their hearts on something that necessarily requires excluding others. Virgil explains that with envy, whatever portion or amount there is; if it is divided, then the possessor has less. Which the envious person can’t stand. So an envious person must exclude others in order to keep as much to himself as possible. But in the heavenly understanding, the more one considers possessions not to be “mine”, but “ours”, the more each one has of that good. Dante questions how it is that if an amount is divided among more men, any one of those could consider they had more, since the amount possessed by each would diminish according to the number of people it was shared with. Virgil notes that he is thinking purely in material terms, which is why he gets darkness from true light. Since God gives us much love as he finds among men, then the more men love and share, the more they will be given, and this just continues to grow, as men continue to love more. Virgil then says Beatrice will explain this even more fully, but for Dante, continue to pursue the removal of the sins as he moves through purgatory.
At this point, they arrive up at the third level where Dante immediately is taken into three ecstatic visions. The first is the vision of Mary asking the boy Jesus why he worried his parents so by remaining at Jerusalem. The second is taken from Greek mythology where Pisistratus wife is indignant that a youth of the city, in love with their daughter, would dare to approach her and hug her. She demands the father exact revenge on the youth for his presumption. Pisistratus replies that if she wants revenge against someone who loved her daughter, what could she want against those who actually hate them? The third vision is of Stephen, the first martyr in Acts. Each of these visions reveals an example of meekness and mercy. When Dante comes to, Virgil tells him he has gone half a league in this state, and when Dante starts to explain the visions, Virgil lets him know that he already knows them, and that they were given so that Dante would open his heart to the waters of peace that spring from the eternal fountain; or open himself to the peace that comes from God. At this they see a dark smoke coming towards them and the canto ends with the two enveloped in this smoke.
Canto XVI
The third level: wrath cont.
The canto starts with Dante and Virgil enveloped in the thick smoke. Virgil offers his shoulder for Dante to lean on, and as they move through the smoke, and Dante hears voices all praying and singing in unison. Dante asks Virgil about this, and Virgil says they are all untying the knot of wrath.
At this point, a voice calls out and asks who is speaking, since he speaks like one who is still alive.
Dante asks the spirit to follow him, and the spirit agrees to for as long as he is able. Dante explains that he is still alive and has been granted access through all three eternal realms, even up to God’s courts. So Dante asks the spirit if they are going towards the ascent to the next level…. but also asks the spirit to tell him who he was in life. He says his name was Marco, and he was a Lombard. He knew the world and loved the courtly values that people these days are no longer interested in. This statement causes Dante to inquire about the nature of why humans go off course. Dante mentions that some blame the stars, essentially blaming a deterministic universe, others blame human conduct. Marco responds that the world is blind, and Dante, still in the world, is blind as well. He says the world always wants to assign blame elsewhere, so they blame the stars or impersonal forces. But if that were true, free will, and any punishment or reward for behavior would be unjust. Heaven started the world turning. Humanity was given light (reason) to see both good and evil, and a free will. If free will endures the fatigue of its first battles with sin, and nurtures good choices, it will conquer all. Though free, men are still subjected to God, and he creates men with a mend that the stars don’t control. If this present world is off course then, look no further than the actions of men.
The nascent soul is considered by God before it is made. It is a tabula rasa, knowing nothing except that, having been made by a joyful maker, it seeks joy in things that entertain it. As it savors things that bring it happiness, it can be fooled and run after those things, unless it is guided by something to direct its desires. So then a law is necessary to restrain it, and a king is necessary to discern where to lead the people.
In Italy, we have laws, but no longer any emperor to lead the people. The shepherd (the pope) that currently leads Italy is capable of thinking about rule, but that isn’t his job and he isn’t fit for it. The people, seeing the popes grabbing at temporal goods, lose sight of what they ought to be aiming at, and run after the same things- earthly, material goods, and don’t concern themselves with caring about the spiritual and eternal values. Evil rule then is the reason why the earth has become corrupt, not the stars, or some external influence outside humanity.
Rome had given the world two lights by which to establish justice and peace: a temporal emperor, and a universal church. But the Pope extinguished the emperor and joined the sword to the shepherd’s hook through an unnaturally forced effort. These two don’t go together and as proof, you can know the plant by its fruit.
Marco then goes on about his own homeland, Lombardy. He mentions that one used to find valor and courtesy there before Frederick II and the argument with the Pope reduced Frederick’s influence in Italy. Now, anyone who is ashamed of his life can pass through Lombardy without having to worry about meeting upright people. There are still three old men whose lives serve as an open rebuke to the current times: Currado da Palazzo, Gherardo da Camino, and Guido da Castel, each upright and honorable men. But the Church, taking on herself both spiritual and temporal power, has fallen into the mud and soiled both her spiritual and temporal leadership.
Dante notes that Marco has reasoned exceptionally well, but he, Dante, doesn’t know of the good Gherardo he was speaking of. Marco can hardly believe that Dante, a Tuscan, would not know of Gherardo, but Marco realizes that he is about to exit the smoke, and he is unable to appear outside of it before an angel that is there, so Marco takes his leave, turns away and here, the canto ends.
Canto XVII
The third level: wrath, and then the fourth level: sloth
The canto starts with Dante coming out of the smoke and finding the sun almost setting. But then he also finds himself once again drawn to some visions within his own imagination: Procne, who in Greek mythology was punished for her wrath by being turned into a nightingale; Haman being impaled in the book of Esther for trying to exterminate all Jews because he felt slighted by Mordecai; and Lavinia, lamenting her own mother’s suicide because the queen couldn’t accept Aeneas as a son-in-law. Each are examples of anger punished. But as Dante is coming out of his visions, an angel appears, too bright for them to look on, pointing the way up to the next level. As Dante and Virgil reach the next level, the sun is setting, and they are unable to go on. Dante asks Virgil what sin is punished on this level, and Virgil explains that it is “love of the good, shrunk from its duty”- or sloth.
Virgil then launches into an explanation of how we, created in love, and patterned after God, who is said to be love, have corrupted this love into various sins.
Virgil starts with two forms of love: natural (instinctual or inherent love) and ‘of the soul’ (what can be freely chosen). Animals operate in an instinctive natural love, but only humans have both natural and love directed by free will. Natural love is always correctly directed because it comes from God and isn’t freely chosen. But our souls can direct its love towards the wrong object, love things to strongly, or not love what we should enough. As such, the source of even our sins is love, but love directed the wrong way, or in disproportionate measure.
Virgil argues that everything is really immune from self-hate, and that it can’t really conceive of being cut off from God, so no creature truly hates God. Therefore, the only thing left is one of these forms of corrupted love towards our fellow men. The first is to love excellence in order to hold it up over others- this is pride. The second fears others rising up over him, and so loves for others to be brought down, which is envy. The third is to be so touchy that one is only satisfied by revenge, and so loves to plot evil for others, which is anger. These three misdirected loves are wept over and expiated by those in the three levels below.
Next, Virgil wants Dante to understand the others, that run to some good, but in a corrupted order.
Everyone at least vaguely understands that there is some good out there (the first good- God) that will satisfy the soul, wants it, and so strives for it. If you see this love, but don’t really pursue after it, then it is sloth, and is punished on this level.
Then there are other goods (secondary, or created goods), which can’t bring true happiness because they aren’t God, who is the essence of every root and good fruit. Love that abandons itself to this is mourned over in the three circles above. Virgil notes that Dante will want to know how this is divided into three, but Virgil will speak no more for now, for Dante must learn it as he goes.
Canto XVIII
The fourth level: sloth cont.
The canto starts with Dante considering the arguments from the last canto and wondering if he should pursue it further, when Virgil encourages him to speak. Dante then asks for some clarification about how love leads to both good and evil works.
The basic argument Virgil makes is that the soul, a combo of the intellect and will, is created to love easily, and is disposed to everything that pleases it. You perceive things from reality, your mind opens it up and the soul turns towards it and may open itself towards that thing, which is love. This is all natural. But just as fire climbs ever higher, so the soul, when the captured soul enters into desire, it won’t rest until it brings joy to the thing it loves. Clearly, depending on the things the soul loves, whether good or evil, actions will be good or evil.
Dante then wonders why, if this is all natural, a soul can be held accountable for simply doing what is in its nature. Virgil responds that there is some aspect of this that will have to be taken by faith, and that Beatrice can explain it further. But the substance of man, the thing that makes him an individual human, holds a particular power or strength. This strength has two components: intellect and will. You don’t see them except for the effect, just like you know a plant is alive by the green in its branches.
Noone knows where the primal love of desirable things comes from, but the combination of the intellect and will counsels our decisions and means that we must give assent to our actions. From this, the rationale for merit comes, because we understand our choices, deliberate, and choose either good or evil. So while love springs from necessity, where we direct that love is up to us. Beatrice understands this all as free will and will explain it to you.
At this point, it is almost midnight, and Dante is starting to fade into sleep, when suddenly, a group comes racing up behind them. Dante likens them to the incited crowds of a Bacchan orgy. But two in front yell out: Mary hastened to the hill country, drawn from Luke 1 when Mary went to visit Elizabeth after hearing she was pregnant; and Caesar hastening to Spain to conquer Lerida. Then they add that they must apply themselves to doing good, which reinvigorates grace.
Virgil asks them how to get to the next level up. One tells them to fall in behind them, explaining that he was the Abbot of San Zeno in Verona. He then gives a little prophecy about Alberto della Scala regretting that had had power over that monastery given what will happen to him when he dies, because he left an evil son in charge there in place of the true shepherd. After that, the man had gotten too far away and Dante could no longer hear him.
Bringing up the rear were too more who denounced sloth by citing the examples of the Israelites who died in the desert because they were unwilling to head up to the promised land, and the men of Aeneas camp who preferred to stay in Sicily than follow their glorious destiny.
By that time though, Dante is losing his ability to stay awake and he falls asleep, ending the canto.
Canto XIX
The fourth level: sloth cont.
The canto picks up just before dawn with Dante dreaming of a stammering woman, described as cross-eyed, lame, stumps for arms, and washed out skin. But as he stares at her, she is transformed into a beauty. At this point her stammering is transformed into clear speech and she begins to sing in such a voice that Dante would find it difficult to pull away. She declares herself to be the Siren that pulls sailors from the high seas and turned Ulysses from his journey, and whoever stays with her will always be fully satisfied. At this point, a holy woman appeared and threw the witch into confusion. She calls out to Virgil, who grabs the Siren and exposes her for who she is, so that her belly gives of a stench.
The siren is clearly a representation of earthly goods or other things that, when man stares long enough, begin to bewitch him and his own staring converts them from base things to something supremely desirable.
Virgil, having exposed the witch, tells Dante to get up because the passage up to the next level is close by. An angel beckons them both and as they pass through the opening, they hear ‘blessed are those that mourn’.
Sloth, which was defined in canto 17 as ‘love of the good, shrunk from its duty’. We understand sloth today as just “slow”, but in the context of sloth as a sin, it is a neglectful attitude in pursuing good. For this reason, the beatitude at the exit of the fourth level is ‘Blessed are those that mourn’, because while sloth is a failure to delight in Godly things that bring true delight, and conversely a focus on the immediacy of earthly delights that ultimately bring sorrow, the remedy would be a mourning that endures the suffering of the earthly things, with a view to an eternal, Godly perspective.
As Dante and Virgil head up, Virgil notices Dante moving with his head turned to the ground and lost in thought about the dream with the Siren. Virgil tells him that she is an ancient witch, the sins of which are repented of in the levels above them, but that Dante himself saw how man frees himself of her- divine grace would have to strip away the deceivingly attractive façade to reveal the ugly reality behind it.
The fifth level: avarice
The travelers reach the fifth level, where they see people everywhere lying face down, and sighing “my soul clings to the ground”. Virgil immediately asks where the passage is to the next level, and one of the penitents says keep their right sides to the outside of the mountain and they’ll get there quickest.
Virgil intuits that Dante wants to speak to the spirit and so gives his assent. Dante asks who he is and why he is on his face, and if there is anything the spirit would like Dante to do anything for him when Dante returns to the land of the living.
The spirit, in answer to the first question, says he is Pope Adriano V… well, he doesn’t actually name himself, but he alludes to his family and birthplace, from which we can ascertain that it was Pope Adriano V. He declares that a little over a month in to his term as pope, he realized that, while he had attained the highest office possible, he had no peace in his heart, and he was converted when he noted his false life and love was sparked in him. Prior to that point, he was utterly avaricious, for which he is being punished as they can see.
In answer to the second question, avarice is a love of earthly goods, and since the avaricious are so fixated on earthly things, here as punishment, their faces are glued to the earth. And because of their love of things useless, meaning their work on earth had no point, here they are bound hand and foot.
At this point, Dante, in respect for his office as Pope, begins to kneel, but Adrian reprimands him and lets him know that he, even though a pope, is a servant of God just like anyone else. Then he mentions that if Dante had ever heard the phrase from the gospel where Jesus says of those in heaven “they neither marry”, he would understand why. The gospel reference is in response to the Sadducees question about who a woman’s husband would be, if she had been married and widowed several times. Jesus tells them that people in heaven are like the angels- not married- because every believer is ‘wedded’ to Jesus. Pope Adrian V is then saying that every believer is a servant to God alone, not subject to the earthly hierarchies.
In answer to the third question, Adrian says he no longer wants to discourse with Dante, but he has only one person on earth, his niece Alagia, who would still pray for him.
Here the canto ends.
Canto XX
The fifth level: avarice cont.
The canto starts by saying Dante wanted to stay longer to hear more, but couldn’t. He likens this to having to pull a sponge from the water before it has soaked up all it could. But he moves on stepping gingerly to avoid the prostrate penitents as he moves along the inner portion of the road.
Dante curses the ancient she-wolf, symbolizing greed, that we met in Inferno canto 1, as claiming more victims than perhaps any other sin, and asking how long until God comes back to clear up the mess and banish sin.
As Dante and Virgil move through the bodies, he hears praises of Mary for her humility in accepting the manger as the birthplace for her child; the consul Fabricius who turned down bribes and died poor; and Saint Nicholas, whose generosity saved some young maidens from being prostituted.
Dante comes closer to find out who it is that recalls such worthy figures, and offers to bless the soul with petitions to help him on his way with prayers when he returns to earth. The soul declines any favors but replies that he is Hugh Capet, father of the lineage of French kings. He laments the avarice of Charles of Anjou in particular, who he lambasts as an avaricious man through fraud and deceit. He notes another Charles that will come in treachery and cause division in Florence, leading to Dante’s own ouster. Then he mentions a third Charles (the second) who will imprison a pope and in doing so, commit the same measure of crime that was committed against Jesus.
Then he notes that the praises Dante had heard are what they all utter, only he happened to be uttering it a bit louder at the time Dante passed, and so was heard. He also notes that at night, they no longer utter praises, but curses against the avaricious: like Pygmalion, who killed his brother-in-law to grab his wealth; Midas, whose greedy wish became his curse; Achan, the Israelite who kept spoils back that were supposed to be destroyed and was stoned to death for it; Ananias and Sapphira, who, in the book of Acts, held back profit from a land sale and tried to deceive the church; Heliodorus, the treasurer of the King of Syria, who was sent to seize the Temple of Jerusalem’s treasure and was kicked by a horse; Polymnestor, who killed Polydorus to get his wealth, and finally Crassus, the triumvir with Caesar and Pompey, whose avarice was well known- he was killed and his mouth filled with molten gold.
Then Dante and Virgil move on when the mountain is shaken strongly and a heavenly choir sings “Glory to God in the highest”. Dante and Virgil move on, but the canto ends with Dante wanting to know more of what just happened.
Canto XXI
The fifth level: avarice cont.
The canto starts with Dante still wanting to know what had just happened on the mountain, but as Dante and Virgil move down the road, they are aware someone has come up behind them. The soul greets them, and Virgil returns with a greeting that lets the stranger know that he, Virgil, is in eternal exile. This causes the soul to wonder how it is that Virgil has escaped hell? Virgil responds that Dante is among those that will go to heaven, but since he is still alive, he needed a guide to lead him through the realms since he is unable to see as they, the shades, do. Virgil then asks about the earthquake and the shouting. The soul replies that nothing happens on the mountain beyond what divine will orders, including any meteorological events. But at the moment a soul feels itself purified from the sin it is being purged of, the mountain trembles and the shout follows. He explains that every soul, of course wants to ascend, but it also feel in itself, that it must pay according to divine justice the penalties for its sin, and so won’t move until it feels itself free to do so. The answer satisfies Dante, who had been longing to know.
Virgil asks who the soul is, and why he had been required to lay there for so many centuries. The soul mentions that he lived in the time when Titus had destroyed the temple in 70 AD, and avenged the blood of Jesus on the Jews who killed him. He was a famous poet, but not a believer. He had been brought to Rome from Toulouse (Dante had his info wrong, the poet was actually from Naples), and his name was Statius. He had a famous poem about Thebes, and was in the middle of a work about Achilles, when he died. But Statius reveals that his love of poetry was sparked by Virgil’s Aeneid, and Statius himself would have gladly spent another year in purgatory for the privilege of living when Virgil lived.
At this Virgil turns to Dante and gives him a look to not say anything. Dante has a hard time controlling himself though, and a slight smile escapes. Statius asks Dante why, and finally Virgil gives Dante the ok to tell who he is. Dante tells Statius that the guide with whom he has been speaking is the same Virgil. At this, Statius kneels and tries to hug Virgil’s feet, but Virgil tells him to knock it off, since they are both no more than shades. Statius acknowledges this, but says that the very fact of his forgetting this, bespeaks his love for Virgil. Here the canto ends.
Canto XXII
The sixth level: gluttony
The canto starts with the entrance to the sixth level, and while Virgil, Dante, and Statius climb, Virgil and Statius converse. Virgil lets Statius know that he actually knew of Statius love for him because another soul was in limbo that had related this to him. Virgil asks Statius how someone with so much wisdom could have been in the level of avarice for so long. Statius replies that it wasn’t avarice, but its inverse: profligacy, that was his sin. Both are punished on the same level. Statius also reveals that it was Virgil’s own writing that prompted him to become a Christian. One of Virgil’s lines caused Statius to reconsider his sin and repent, and another verse, mentioning a ‘new progeny descending from heaven’, along with the preaching of the Christians, caused him to turn to the Christian faith. But sadly, he was afraid, so he hid his faith and pretended to be a pagan. It was this that caused him to spend so much time in purgatory.
Then Statius turns and asks Virgil about who else is there in limbo. A list of names follows that I won’t bore you with, but they finally all arrive up at the sixth level late in the morning. They continue to head counterclockwise around the mountain when they come upon a tree in the middle of the road, tapered upwards. It has sweet apples, and is watered by a stream that pours over the leaves and dissipates. Voices proclaim that one can’t partake of this fruit. Then several examples are given of holy living in the past, where self-denial is extolled. This is the level that purges the sin of gluttony.