Michael Spaulding Dante: Peccatum Analysis: Purgatorio Page 1

“I shall be telling this with a sighSomewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”

-Robert Frost

Dante’s Purgatory: The Prideful

It is easy to sin, because sinning is easy. Hedonism, living in the moment, without

ultimate consequence, because it feels good, short-sighted, because I wanted to—many roads

lead to hell, but the path to heaven is narrow. Matthew 19:24 “recalls Christ’s words to his

disciples: ‘And again I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle,

than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God’ ” (339n7-16). And so the journey into

purgatory is not guarded by a gate “less secret” and “without its bolts” (Inferno, 8.126), but by a

“holy gate” (9.130-31) “of massive and resounding metal” (8.134). Hell welcomes its guests with

wide open arms while purgatory is the narrow road of work and penance—you come to

Purgatory to earn your salvation by working off your sins, because as Virgil says, “love is the

seed ‘of all acts deserving punishment’ as well as ‘of every virtue’ ” (17.104-5).

And so, just moments before Dante actually crosses the threshold of the gates into

purgatory, “Upon [Dante’s] forehead, [God’s angel] traced seven P’s with his sword’s point and

said: “When you have entered within, take care to wash away these wounds” (9.114). The angel

is telling Dante that it will be his responsibility to cleanse himself of his sins (peccatum), not

anyone else’s. This is important because it places the guilt upon the individual, not any spiritual

being in heaven or hell. This echoes Marco Lombardi’s monologue about free will where he tells

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Dante that “[y]ou living ones continue to assign to heaven every cause, as if it were the necessary

source of every motion” (16.67-9), but the true “cause” of sin is “in you” (16.83).

Dante, after receiving his seven P’s can now begin to cleanse them away by journeying

through the seven planes of mount purgatory. As he begins his journey, Dante is overwhelmed by

carvings, “effigies of true humility” (10.98), of those that represent the antithesis of Pride. Each

carving foreshadows not only the sin that Dante is about to witness but also provides separate

examples of humility to demonstrate the variability in which humility may be exercised. Virgil

emphasizes this variability, telling Dante that his “mind must not attend to just one part” (10.46).

First, Dante studies a carving of the Virgin Mary, the woman through whom “the highest love”

was “unlocked” (10.42-3). In the carving, she humbly accepts her position as the “handmaid of

the Lord” (340n44), committing herself as a servant and a medium for the Lord to work through.

Next, Dante is drawn to a carving of the holy arc being drawn through the city, in front of which

King David dances and praises the Lord (10.55-66). Dante notes that the enthusiasm and

seemingly reckless display of joy embody humility in a way that made King David “both less

and more than King” (10.66), because he is able to put aside his earthly titles and simply relish,

like any man, in the joy of the Lord. And finally, Dante is taken by the carving of Trajan, the

Roman Emperor, who personally handled a matter of justice and mercy although he could have

had any of his subordinates attend to the task (10.76-93). Although at first this form of humility

resembles that of King David in the previous carving, it is different. In Trajan’s example, it is a

pagan humility based on virtues alone. This godless, yet ethical and virtuous, form of humility is

so important to Dante the Poet however that he included it as one of the three carvings of divine

examples. This reemphasizes Dante’s concern with Nicomachean ethics as well as Christian

morals.

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And so the stage is set for Dante to finally witness the Prideful penitent of purgatory.

Dante notes that life itself, and purgatory, is a “debt we owe” (10.108), and therefore it is simply

justice that purgatory represents, and love. Also before “Canto X” can end, Virgil illustrates a

metaphor on life through his statement about purgatory: “Don’t dwell upon the form of

punishment: consider what comes after that; at worst it cannot last beyond the final Judgment”

(10.109-111). As humans we must realize that this applies to our own lives, which are short and

fleeting and incomparable in length when contrasted against eternity. We must resist the flesh

and pursue health of spirit because what is most important is “what comes after that” (10.110).

And so, we meet those that did not consider “what comes after that.” In the distance,

Dante sees objects “moving toward” himself that “[do] not appear … like people” (10.112-3).

The objects are actually people however, they are the Prideful: they placed themselves first and

highest and were more concerned with their fame and ego than anything else in their lives. Pride

is the sin of elevating one’s self so it is fitting that Virgil notes upon seeing their penance,

“whatever makes them suffer their heavy torment bends them to the ground” (10.115-6). And to

further ensure that all facets of Pride are correspondingly opposed, Dante the poet has also made

them unrecognizable; Virgil agrees with Dante’s first observation and says, “At first I was unsure

of what they were” (10.117). Almost like a slap in the face, Dante breaks into lecture as he

dismantles the pride of haughty Christians. He accuses the prideful of placing their “confidence

in backward steps” (i.e., themselves) instead of in God (10.123). And then he reminds man that

no matter how ‘good’ of a Christian you are, you have no right to “presume to flight when you

are still like the imperfect grub, the worm before it has attained its final form” (10.127-9). This

reemphasizes the unbridgeable gap between the flesh and the spirit, and the man and the divine.

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And so how can one atone for such arrogance and ignorance? Prayer is a good start. The

prideful “pray a paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer,” admitting that even if they “summon all [their

force],” they “cannot reach [the Kingdom of Heaven]” without the Lord (11.7-9). And perhaps

as one of the most important parts of the prideful’s penitent prayer is the end when the pray “for

the ones whom we have left behind” (11.24), thus focusing their energies on people other than

themselves—a humbling experience. The prayer that the penitent cry out is an experience of

unlearning and relearning, paralleling Dante the Pilgrim’s experience in both The Inferno and

thus far in Purgatorio.

Dante provides two examples of this perverted prideful love (love of oneself over love of

another—e.g., love of neighbors’ harm). The first we meet is Omberto Aldobrandesco, son of

Guiglielmo, and heir to a powerful family line of Lords (11.59). In his arrogance that he extorted

from his bloodline he became “presumptuous” (11.62) and “without thinking on our common

mother,… scorned all men past measure” (11.63-4). And so although he may have been a

Christian, his perverted love obscured the two of the basic commandments of Christianity: “Jesus

said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and

with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou

shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the

prophets” (Matthew 22:37-40).

Dante’s second encounter, with Oderisi, “glory of Gubbio” (11.79), is actually less

important regarding Oderisi himself, but more important in that it reflects upon Dante’s career as

an artist. This is where we really begin to see some self-reflection on Dante’s own pride and

issues he was dealing with as a poet. Oderisi, as a lesson to Dante, expands upon the layers of

fame of each artist and how earthly fame is simply “empty glory” (11.91) that “briefly green

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endures” (11.92). “Worldy renown is nothing other than a breath of wind that blows now here,

now there, and changes name when it has changed its course” (11.100-2). This discourse

between the pilgrim and Oderisi also illuminates some of the insecurities Dante had about his

own poetry thus emphasizing the internal struggle as an artist to produce immortal works of art

but also to save his own soul.

So after Dante’s soul is filled “with sound humility, abating [his] overswollen pride”

(11.119-120), he finally stands “erect,” but with a “submissive, bent” humility (12.7-9). And then

as Dante travels away from the penitent he walks along a path with thirteen examples of those

punished for Pride and eventually meets the Angel of Humility who erases the Prideful P from

Dante’s forehead and promises him a safe journey (12.91-99). And as he ascends, “ ‘beati

paupers spiritu’ was sung so sweetly—it can not be told in words” (12.110-1), for blessed are the

poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:3).

Written nearly 700 years ago, the values we learn from Dante are still lucrative today—as

a Christian or not. We learn from this terrace of Purgatory to love our neighbor more than

ourselves because we all come from the same dirt. As an atheist, we are all part of the same

universe and share the same atoms; as a Christian, we are all bound spiritually by our Heavenly

Father. Pride has been the source of racism, nationalism (which starts wars: see WWI and

WWII), and sexism. Even in the most tolerant and modern era we are just making headway into

loving each other for our differences and beginning to think we instead of I. So cast that boulder

off your shoulder and know that you can’t do anything alone.