Hugh Capet continues the story of his family with three descendants who make a mess of Italy in Dante the poet’s own day: Charles I of Anjou, Charles of Valois, and Charles II of Anjou. The Capetian dynasty is driven mad by avarice, all starting with the acquisition of the dowry of Provence. (And in this passage, we get our first instance of antisemitism in COMEDY.)
Read MoreDante the pilgrim walks up to the soul who has been citing Mary, Fabricius, and Nicholas as his exemplars against avarice. The pilgrim finds himself with Hugh Capet, the legendary (and historical) founder of the Capetian dynasty of French kings. Or maybe not, since Dante the poet gets his historical wires crossed.
Read MoreDante and Virgil pick their way slowly among the avaricious shades, face down and immobile on the fifth terrace of Mount Purgatory. Dante the pilgrim is attracted by one soul ahead who is speaking out examples of poverty . . . and perhaps generosity. This voice leads the pilgrim right up to the next major figure of PURGATORIO.
Read MoreDante the pilgrim has to move on . . . because Pope Adrian V told him to. The pilgrim and Virgil pick their way among the crowds of penitents on the terrace of avarice. There are so many that the poet has to step out with a prophetic curse and a plea for a redeemer.
Read MorePope Adrian V ends his discourse in a strange way: seemingly piqued at the pilgrim Dante before he sounds a note of loneliness, even alienation. Perhaps this loneliness is what avarice does to a soul. Or perhaps it’s what exile has done to Dante.
Read MorePope Adrian V answers the pilgrim Dante’s second question: What is going on here on the fifth terrace of Purgatory? In so doing, the pope offers one of the most misunderstood lines of PURGATORIO and also ties the punishment here back to the subject of falconry.
Read MoreDante the pilgrim gets Virgil’s okay to address one of the penitents on the fifth circle of Mount Purgatory. The pilgrim then finds himself standing over Pope Adrian V, the first pope we meet in PURGATORIO. Or at least it’s Adrian V as far as the Dante the poet is concerned . . . but maybe not as far as history is concerned.
Read MoreDante and Virgil now walk along the fifth terrace of Mount Purgatory, seeing penitent souls who are face down, stuck to the earth, unable to turn over. Virgil wants to get on up to the next terrace but Dante the pilgrim wants to stop and talk to one of these penitents.
Read MoreThe pilgrim may be on his way to the fifth terrace of Purgatory, but he’s still burdened by his dream of the seductive woman and the holy, speedy lady. Virgil comes to the rescue once again—this time with a reinterpretation of that dream (which leaves us a lot of questions!) and a command to look up at the heavens as the ultimate lure of desire.
Read MoreAwakened by the foul smell in his second Purgatorial dream, Dante the pilgrim finds himself out of tune with his surroundings: a bright new day, the sun at his back, and an angel who fans him on to the fifth terrace ahead. Most curious of all, those who mourn are promised “ladies of consolation,” which the pilgrim doesn’t seem to fully recognize.
Read MoreDante’s dream continues with the ugly woman turned beautiful . . . and then into a siren. She sings a song about Ulysses (a song that gets his story wrong but brings him back into COMEDY) before a holy speedy lady descends to request Virgil’s aid in (once again) saving Dante the pilgrim.
Read MoreOur pilgrim Dante falls asleep on the fourth terrace of Mount Purgatory, just as he’s been passed by the racing slothful. The night air is chilly and his dream is chillier: a deformed woman made beautiful by our pilgrim’s act of observing her.
Read MoreAt last, the slothful penitents arrive . . . in a frenzied rush. The horde passes by the pilgrim and Virgil as one soul calls out his story. It speaks a brave truth about the family of a very powerful warlord . . . in fact, the very warlord who has hosted and guarded Dante on the run for years.
Read MoreVirgil offers a third discourse on love to show his work and to get close to an understanding of ethics. In doing so, he reaches into Aristotle’s logic of causality and attempts to come to terms with why humans behave they do. But even as he reaches back, he looks forward to our modern understanding of ethics.
Read MoreAfter the pilgrim’s request that Virgil show his work, the old poet condenses and recasts the basis of thinking in Western culture from its roots in Aristotle. But Virgil’s claims run into specific problems, which Dante the poet tries to solve in the way he knows best: with metaphor.
Read MoreA (sort of?) short summary of PURGATORIO, Cantos I through XVII. To see the imaginative sweep. To remember where we’ve been. And to set us up for the questions ahead, both in the remainder of PURGATORIO and indeed on into PARADISO.
Read MoreVirgil concludes his central discourse on love—the center of both PURGATORIO and indeed COMEDY as a whole—on a strangely ambiguous note. After so much certainty about how humans act and why the afterlife is set up as it is, he ends by saying, “I just don’t know”—a wildly discordant note amid so much “truth.”
Read MoreVirgil continues his discourse on love, the central discourse in Dante’s COMEDY. Virgil explains love as the basis of human behavior, using reasoning from both Aquinas and Aristotle. His understanding of ethics forms the basis of Purgatory itself and perfectly fits Dante’s ultimate vision that desire drives us to God.
Read MoreVirgil opens the central discourse of Dante’s COMEDY with his thesis on love: it’s the seed of all human action, good or bad. He then parses that thesis with scholastic reasoning, only to repeat the claim and come to rest at the conclusion. You’re in heaven or hell because of love!
Read MoreDante and Virgil have reached the fourth terrace of Purgatory proper, the spot where the slothful race around to purge their sin. But before we see the runners, Virgil treats the pilgrim (and us) to the central discourse of COMEDY: all human actions are rooted in love. Here’s a read-through of PURGATORIO, Canto XVII, Line 73, to Canto XVIII, Line 145.
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