PURGATORIO, Episode 116. Scarcity, Abundance, And Poetics Between Terraces: PURGATORIO, Canto XV, Lines 34 - 57

The long awaited angel finally arrives and ushers Dante and Virgil to the stairway up to the third terrace of Purgatory. As the two climb this easier ascent, Dante takes a moment to get Virgil to gloss two lines spoken by Guido del Duca in Canto XIV. Both in Dante’s question and in Virgil’s answer, we can sense the changing notion of COMEDY as we enter the middle cantos of the poem.

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PURGATORIO, Episode 96. Erasing God's Writing And Virgil's Smile: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, Lines 118 - 139

Dante the pilgrim and his guide, Virgil, take on the last bit of the climb out of the first terrace of Purgatory proper, the terrace of pride. PURGATORIO continues to compellingly difficult and enjoyable because they exit the terrace with two interesting and unexpected moments: Virgil smiles and God’s writing is erased.

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PURGATORIO, Episode 95. Narrow Stairs, Contorted Similes, And The On-Going Poetry Of Hell: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, Lines 100 - 117

Dante and Virgil climb to the second terrace of Purgatory through one of the more difficult similes in all of COMEDY: a contorted and rage-filled bit of poetry about Florence and its corruption, all in the emotional landscape of redemption, which ends at one of Jesus’s beatitudes and also the screams of hell itself.

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PURGATORIO, Episode 94. The Climb Out Of Pride: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, Lines 73 - 99

Dante and Virgil begin to leave the terrace of pride and all its art, but not before Virgil returns to form, becoming the guide to the afterlife with a penchant for quoting himself and not before an angel must guide them to the stairs, an angel who carries in his face an implicit reference to Lucifer (that is, Satan).

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