PURGATORIO, Episode 133. All The Light Ends With The Stars: PURGATORIO, Canto XVII, Lines 40 - 72

Dante the poet is having great fun with light. He's playing with its various meanings: illumination, revelation, sunrise, sunset, concealment, power--all this as we approach the middle of PURGATORIO and even find ourselves in the middle of COMEDY as a whole.

Join me as we explore these last moments on Purgatory's terrace of the wrathful before we find ourselves again among the stars.

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Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:

[01:41] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XVII, lines 40 - 72. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me, please scroll down this page.

[04:16] A dizzying interplay about light: physical/metaphysical, imaginary/revelatory, sunrise/sunset, illuminating/concealing.

[06:46] Desire and the necessary (physical) fulfillment: a lead-in to what's ahead on the journey.

[08:37] Virgil's reply, a pastiche of Biblical and classical sources.

[12:37] The beatitude that ends this terrace, plus a non-Biblical addition to it that then complicates our notion of anger.

[16:51] Stars and the center of COMEDY.

[17:39] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XVII, lines 40 - 72.

And here’s my English translation of Purgatorio, Canto XVII, Lines 40 – 72

As sleep is suddenly fractured when new light

Strikes our closed eyes—yet glimmers

A bit as it dies away—

So my imagination fell from me

As soon as the light hit me full in the face,

Far brighter than any we’d seen up until now.

I turned around to see where I was

When a voice said, “Here’s the climb up!”

That voice took every other intent from me

And gave me a desire to see quickly

Who the speaker was,

A wish that doesn’t stop until it sees face to face.

Yet [it was] like [looking] at the sun that overpowers our sight

And covers its form with sheer abundance—

So, too, my strength was giving out.

“This is the divine spirit, who is showing us

The way to go up without our begging for it.

He conceals his form within his light.

“He treats us just how we would treat ourselves,

For whoever sees the need but waits to be asked

Already moves off toward an unkind denial.

“Let’s now march our steps right toward his invitation.

Let’s try to climb up before it gets dark

Or we will have to hang out until the day returns.”

So said my leader. And I with him

Turned our footsteps to a stairway.

As soon as I was on the first step,

I felt something like a wing’s movement through the air.

It blew into my face and said, “Beati pacifici,

You who are without evil anger.”

The last rays were already so high

Up above us that night was following on

And the stars were becoming apparent on all sides.