Purgatorio, the second part of Dante’s Divine Comedy, describes the poet’s vision of journeying through Purgatory, the place where Christian souls (though destined for Heaven) are cleansed of the sins they committed during their earthly lives. The logic of Purgatory, according to medieval Roman Catholic doctrine, was that after souls were cleansed of the guilt of original (inherited) sin through baptism, they still had to purge the effects of sins committed throughout life. This was the path to making restitution for one’s sins in order to be sufficiently purified to enter Heaven. The big difference between the souls described in Dante’s Inferno (the first part of the Divine Comedy) and those in Purgatorio, in other words, is that souls in Hell never repented of their sins or turned toward God. Those in Purgatory are repentant, and their desires are oriented toward God, but they still have to be prepared to enter God’s perfect presence. Through his allegorical portrayal of Purgatory as a journey through which souls undertake penances specific to their sins, Dante suggests that the soul’s progress toward God is not primarily a punitive one, but a journey aimed at healing and purifying the soul.
Purgatory’s punishments are specifically suited to cleanse particular sins. For example, the sinners categorized as gluttonous (who had an excessive appetite for food and drink during their earthly lives), are denied of enticing-smelling of fruit: “And all these people, weeping as they sing, / because their gullets led them past all norms / are here remade as holy, thirsting, hungering. / Cravings to eat and drink are fired in us / By perfumes from that fruit and from the spray [.]” In other words, the hunger and thirst the souls endure in Purgatory is not punishment for its own sake; rather, the “craving” is intended to bring about something good: purging excessive desire. This teaches these souls to restrain desire to an appropriate level so that, someday, desire for God will overshadow every other appetite. In a similar way, souls guilty of lust, while hurrying through the purifying fires of Purgatory’s highest level, stop to embrace one another fleetingly. Dante sees “the shadows kiss / […] each one content to keep the frolic brief.” This passage suggests that it’s not the expression of love (even physically) that’s sinful, in and of itself; rather, expressing love to an immoderate degree stains the soul. In Purgatory, souls learn and practice appropriately restrained, “brief” expressions of love, thereby purging the excesses in which they indulged during life.
Another aspect of cleansing in Purgatory is that instead of being turned sinfully inward, souls are turned outward in repentance, open to others and ultimately to divine love. In Hell, souls are oblivious to all but their own torment. In Purgatory, by contrast, souls can both help and be helped by the souls of those still living. For instance, Dante hears the proud souls, after praying for protection from Satan, commenting, “This final prayer is made […] / not for ourselves (we now have no such need). / We speak for those behind us, who’ve remained. […] We surely ought to help them cleanse the marks / that they bore hence [.]” In Purgatory, then, there’s a sense of community and shared purpose as souls help one another on the journey toward Heaven. These shared efforts particularly help purge pride from those souls who, during their earthly lives, were primarily focused on their own concerns rather than those of others. Likewise, souls being cleansed in Purgatory are trained to replace other self-regarding sins with attitudes that look beyond themselves. Those being cleansed of envy, Virgil explains, must learn to replace it with the virtue of generosity: “For […] the more that we can speak of ‘Ours’, / the more each one possesses of the good / and […] [charity] burns brighter.” As self-centered desires are replaced with a focus on collective good, love increases. Generosity, in turn, reflects the “infinite” and “lavish” love of God toward which all sinners in Purgatory are learning to orient themselves.
Interestingly, it’s only after Dante has reached the summit of Mount Purgatory, progressing through all the stages of purgation (spiritual cleansing), that he fully realizes the enormity of his own sin. After encountering his beloved Beatrice (who symbolizes pure love) face to face, Dante weeps over his former satisfaction with “Mere things of here and now / and their false pleasures.” For Dante, Beatrice symbolizes the highest of loves—love for God—and the soul’s union with God. His weeping before Beatrice shows, again, that purgation isn’t intended just for punishment’s sake. Rather, it’s meant to prepare the soul to recognize and desire God’s love. This, in Dante’s view, is what makes Heaven such an infinitely desirable place to begin with—well worth the journey of suffering.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Purgatory and the Heavenward Journey ThemeTracker
Purgatory and the Heavenward Journey Quotes in Purgatorio
To race now over better waves, my ship
of mind – alive again – hoists sail, and leaves
behind its little keel the gulf that proved so cruel.
And I’ll sing, now, about that second realm
where human spirits purge themselves from stain,
becoming worthy to ascend to Heaven.
Here, too, dead poetry will rise again.
For now, you sacred Muses, I am yours.
So let Calliope, a little, play her part […]
Celestial, at the stern, the pilot stood –
beatitude, it seemed, inscribed on him –
and, ranged within, a hundred spirits more.
‘In exitu Israel de Aegypto’:
they sang this all together, in one voice,
with all the psalm that’s written after this.
[…]
The crowd that now remained, it seemed, was strange,
astray there, wondering, looking all around,
as people do, assessing what is new.
There is a place down there not grim with pain
but only with sad shades whose deep laments
sound not as screams but melancholy sighs.
I take my place with children – innocents
in whom the bite of death set lethal teeth
before they’d been made free of human sin.
And there I stay with all who were not clothed
in those three holy virtues – though I knew,
and, guiltless, followed all the other four.
This final prayer is made, O dearest Lord,
not for ourselves (we now have no such need).
We speak for those behind us, who’ve remained.’
Then praying, for themselves and us, ‘God speed’,
these shadows made their way beneath such loads
as sometimes in our nightmares can be seen. […]
We surely ought to help them cleanse the marks
that they bore hence – till, light in weight and pure,
they’ve power to rise towards the wheeling stars.
We were, by now, ascending that great stair.
And I, it seemed, was lighter now by far
than I had seemed while still on level ground.
So, ‘Tell me, sir,’ I said, ‘what weight has now
been lifted from me, so I almost feel
no strain at all in walking on my way?’
He answered: ‘When the “P”s that mark your brow,
remaining still, though growing now more faint,
have all (as is the first) been sheared away,
your steps will then be conquered by good will
and, being thus impelled towards the heights,
will feel no strain but only sheer delight.’
You, living there, derive the cause of all
straight from the stars alone, as if, alone,
these made all move in mere necessity.
Yet were that so, in you would be destroyed
the freedom of your will – and justice fail
in giving good its joy and grief its ill.
The stars initiate your vital moves.
I don’t say all. And yet suppose I did,
you’re given light to know what’s good and bad,
and free will, too, which if it can endure
beyond its early battles with the stars,
and if it’s nourished well, will conquer all.
Neither creator nor created thing
was ever, dearest son, without’ (he starts)
‘the love of mind or nature. You know that.
The natural love can never go astray.
The other, though, may err when wrongly aimed,
or else through too much vigour or the lack. […]
Hence, of necessity, you’ll understand
that love must be the seed of all good powers,
as, too, of penalties your deeds deserve.
If love is slack in drawing you to view –
or win – that good, then this ledge, where we’re now,
after your fit repentance, martyrs you.
And other goods will not bring happiness,
not happy in themselves, nor that good source
of being, seed and flower of all that’s good.
Soon they were on us. For they moved at speed,
racing towards us, that great multitude.
And two ahead were shouting, weepingly. […]
‘Quick! Quick! Let’s lose no time through lack of love!’
so all of those behind now shouted out.
‘For zeal in doing good turns grace new green.’
Because our eyes were fixed on earthly things,
at no point raised to look towards the heights,
so justice sinks them here within the earth.
Since avarice extinguished all our love
for any good – and so good works were lost –
justice here holds us tight within its grip.
Tremors strike here when any soul feels pure
and rises, newly cleansed, to start its climb.
And that cry follows as the soul ascends.
The will alone gives proof of purity
when, wholly free to change its sacred place,
it aids and sweeps the soul up, willing well.
While I, through these green boughs, fixed searching sight
as might some hunter tracking little birds,
who spends his life in vain on that pursuit),
my more-than-father spoke. ‘Dear son,’ he said,
‘do come along. The time appointed us
should be more usefully divided out.’
And all these people, weeping as they sing,
because their gullets led them past all norms,
are here remade as holy, thirsting, hungering.
Cravings to eat and drink are fired in us
by perfumes from that fruit and from the spray
that spreads in fans above the greenery.
Open your heart. Receive the coming truth.
Know this: when once the foetal brain is brought
to full articulation in the womb,
the Primal Cause of Motion turns in joy
to see so much of Nature’s art, and breathes
new breath of spirit filled with power within,
which draws all active elements it finds
into its being and thus forms one soul
which lives and feels and turns as conscious self.
Over my suppliant hands entwined, I leaned
just staring at the fire, imagining
bodies of human beings I’d seen burn.
And both my trusted guides now turned to me.
And Virgil spoke, to say: ‘My dearest son,
here may be agony but never death.
Remember this! Remember! And if I
led you to safety on Geryon’s back,
what will I do when now so close to God?
Believe this. And be sure. Were you to stay
a thousand years or more wombed in this fire,
you’d not be made the balder by one hair.
Then, firmly, Virgil fixed his eyes on me,
saying: ‘The temporal and eternal fires
you’ve seen, my son, and now you’re in a place
where I, through my own powers, can tell no more.
I’ve drawn you here by skill and searching mind.
Now take what pleases you to be your guide.
You’re now beyond the steeps, beyond all straits. […]
No longer look to me for signs or word.
Your will is healthy, upright, free and whole.
And not to heed that sense would be a fault.
Lord of yourself, I crown and mitre you.’
Risen from body into spirit-form,
my goodness, power and beauty grew more strong.
Yet I to him was then less dear, less pleasing.
He turned his steps to paths that were not true.
He followed images of failing good
which cannot meet, in full, their promises.
However, since these pages now are full,
prepared by rights to take the second song,
the reins of art won’t let me pass beyond.
I came back from that holiest of waves
remade, refreshed as any new tree is,
renewed, refreshed with foliage anew,
pure and prepared to rise towards the stars.
