PURGATORIO

Author: Dante Alighieri
Year: 1966 (1321)
Publisher: Rabén & Sjögren
Language: Swedish (Translator Aline Pipping)

In the opening of the second part of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, “Skärselden” (“Purgatorio”), we find the narrator ejected from the lowest circles of Inferno onto the foothills of the mountain that is Purgatory. In Dante’s cosmology, the mountain of Purgatory rises as a counterpoint to Lucifer’s plunge into earth’s core, thus thrusting matter in front of him forward to create a mountain, roughly as tall as earth’s radius in the opposing end. Dante’s steadfast companion, Virgil, is still by his side. Unlike Inferno, the old man as a heathen and without hope of salvation has no prior knowledge of Purgatory but his wisdom will remain a beacon of advice and comfort to Dante during his continued exploration of the afterlife.  

Emerging from their long stay in the darkness of Hell, both men are blinded by the radiant sun. Although sounds of weeping and sorrow are heard around them here, too, the anguish is of a different kind. No longer the piercing screams of agony nor desperate cries of despair. The tears flowing in Purgatory are tears of insight and remorse. Contrary to the eternal damnation of Inferno, Purgatory offers the promise of redemption. Each soul, in its own time, will be admitted through the gates of Paradise. The role of the crucibles of Purgatory is to purge the sins from the souls in order to purify them before they enter the eternal joys in God’s presence. Though the sins of the souls saved in Purgatory rival those of the damned in Inferno, these sinners have acknowledged them and chosen the path to salvation by accepting the Lord as their saviour.

This truth is explicitly detailed in Canto 5 where Dante is first introduced to the negligent. Neither rejection nor defiance stain these souls. Rather, in their lifetime they succumbed to the trivial weakness of sloth and the distracting allure of simple pleasures which neutralised their capacity to embrace the highest love. Here, Dante moves on to encounter those who met their end suddenly, unprepared to meet their maker, such as victims of assassination or accidents. Yet, if only in the fleeting instant of their moment of death, the faintest whisper of submission to God’s will touched their hearts, they have been spared. For as Jesus replied to his disciples when they asked who can be saved

With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.*

Only through God, not our own actions, can our souls obtain salvation.

The divine beauty of humility is further elaborated on in Canto 11 picturing the souls steeped in the sin of pride and self-absorption. Those who used to look down upon their peers and cast disdainful gazed from their lofty heights, are here forced to carry the heavy burdens of their transgressions on their backs, making them bend down toward the earth, capable of seeing nothing but their own feet and the ground on which they trample, never to look down on anybody else again. Amidst this powerful reckoning, Dante and Virgil encounter Oderisi di Gubbio, the gifted painter, and Dante overflows with praise for his work. The painter gently dismisses him in a testimony of subdued humility.

“Brother!” said he, “with tints that gayer smile,
Bolognian Franco’s pencil lines the leaves.
His all the honour now; mine borrow’d light.”**

Praising your rivals and rejoicing in the success of others is just one of many kinds of love that God wants us to learn. If we cannot do it in life, we may get a second chance in Purgatory.

Similarly to Inferno, which descends through cycles of escalating sin drawing nearer Satan’s sulphurous lair, so too does the mountain of Purgatory reaching for the skies divided into circles of sinners edging ever closer to the promise of permanent redemption. Contrary to common belief, the gates of St Peter do not provide access to Paradise in Dante’s understanding, but to Purgatory. As God is omnipresent, his being is central to all that exists, including sin. All sin is the result of man’s perverted abuse of love, which is God. All who enter Purgatory are guaranteed salvation, but not without the purifying trials of time. The first circles after entering through the gates, are the circles of sins derived from misguided love. Here we find those who love themselves (superbia), those who love what others possess (invidia), and the ones encumbered by inverted love, i.e. hatred (ira). Beyond lies the domain of sinners who did not love enough; the carefree (acedia), while in the final three circles we find those whose lives were ensnared in excessive love; the greedy (avaritia), the gluttonous (gula), and the lustful (luxuria). Together they correspond to the seven deadly sins.

An intriguing cultural tidbit can be found in Canto 6 where Dante enumerates some dynasties that ruled the major city-states on the Italian peninsula. Among them he mentions the Montecchi, Cappelletti, Monaldi, and Filippeschi. Curiously, the first two were rivalling families in the annals of Verona’s tumultuous past, their story immortalised by a certain English playwright three centuries later.

“Skärselden” is sometimes mentioned as the least interesting part of The Divine Comedy but after reading and contemplating, there is good reason to reevaluate this statement. Far from the bombastic visual effects of the Inferno, the melancholic tone of “Skärselden” carries profound truths about the nature of sin and above all, the geography of redemption. If Inferno and Paradise are destinations, Purgatory is a journey. In the words of the Swedish poet Karin Boye

The day of plenty may not the greatest be,
greater still is the day of thirst, you see.
For sure, a meaning to our journey we can find,
yet the road itself is what is worth the grind.***

 

*  Matthew 19:25 KJV
**“The Vision of Purgatory”, Project Gutenberg 2004 translation: Henry Francis Cary
*** My own translation