Purgatorio by Dante

Source of book: I own this. 

 

It is hard to believe how much time has flown by. I read the first installment of Dante’s Divine Comedy a full 14 years ago. 

 

I had intended to go back and read the other two parts, but harbored a hope that Robert Pinsky would translate them like he did Inferno. Alas, he is now 85, and his translation is 31 years old, so I strongly doubt one will be forthcoming. 

 

For this post, I read the two very different translations that I own: the classic Melville Best Anderson poetic translation from 1921, complete with the illustrations by William Blake; and a prose translation by H. R. Huse from 1954. 

 

There are literally over 100 English translations to choose from, including ones by such luminaries as Dorothy Sayers and Clive James. I guess I could have purchased one of the well-regarded alternatives as well. And who knows? Maybe I will when it comes to Paradiso. 

 

 As I noted in my previous post, I liked the Pinsky one best. All translation is a compromise, an approximation of meaning. This is doubly true for poetry, where the form is as important as the individual words. I talk about this at greater length in my earlier post. 

 

In this case, I will be contrasting a highly poetic version which preserves the stanzas and the terza rima, but stretches meaning quite a bit, and is also pretty obscure, with the prose version which has no meter or rhyme, but is more literal and easy to follow. The former is great to read aloud, but the latter is definitely easier to follow and understand. 

 

I confess that, despite my fairly large vocabulary, I had to look up a number of words in the Anderson translation. He often picks ones that haven’t been in common usage for centuries - archaic even when he wrote it. For example, “benison” is one of his recurrent favorites. It kinda-sorta means the same thing as “benevolence.” But with one fewer syllable, it fits the meter better. 

 

There are some other fascinating choices. Anderson translates not only the Italian, but also the quotes from Latin. Huse, in contrast, translates only the Italian, and leaves the Latin intact. The Latin is then translated in a footnote. This is interesting in that it clearly signals which language is being used at any given time. 

 

Because Divine Comedy is filled with references to literature, history, and contemporary figures, any translation needs some explanation. Anderson leaves these to endnotes, and doesn’t signal in the text itself when to refer to them. Huse, in contrast, introduces sections with a brief explanation, and inserts further information in brackets in the text where needed. I found this helpful in many cases. My knowledge of classic mythology is decent, but not every metaphor is obvious. Even more than that, though, Dante includes a lot of contemporary Italian history and people in this book, few of which I was familiar with. 

 

That, of course, is the truth about the book: it is really the OG “diss track,” where Dante wreaks literary revenge on the people who exiled him from his city. He is talking shit and naming names, and relishing the ability to damn his enemies to hell, or sentence them to lengthy penance in Purgatory, while rewarding those who treated him well. It’s pretty epic. 

 

As someone raised Evangelical, I was taught that Purgatory was a made-up false doctrine, and that people either went to Heaven or Hell, based on mental assent to a particular doctrine of atonement. So, it was kind of interesting to read this and see what Dante’s vision of the process was. 

 

I’m kind of an agnostic about the afterlife these days - Shakespeare called it “the undiscovered country from whose borne no traveler returns,” and Rabelais labeled “the great perhaps” - but I think there is something morally necessary about the existence of Purgatory as part of any coherent afterlife. After all, pretty much all of us would be skeptical about, say, a Hitler who repented at the end of life walking scot-free into a Heaven where his victims never received restitution. 

 

The idea that all of us, but particularly those who have done the most damage in life, would need to be “purified” of our sins, and pay some sort of penance or make some sort of amends for what we have done, makes a lot of moral sense. 

 

I could write a whole post or more on my thoughts on this matter, but that is beyond the scope of this review. 

 

Dante envisions Purgatory as a combination of carrots and sticks - there are negative examples of bad behavior and positive examples of good behavior, combined with the penitents experiencing the opposite of their sins. The proud must be made humble, for example. 

 

As with the entire work, everything is built around the number three. There are 33 cantos in each of its three parts. The form is terza rima - an interlocking series of tercets. There are 33 syllables in each tercet. Each of the three parts is broken down into nine circles. There are undoubtedly more that I am missing. 

 

Leaving the horrors of Hell behind, this middle section represents the rise from the lowest point to the brink of heaven. Having passed all the way through the earth, Dante and his guide, Virgil, emerge at the base of the mountain of Purgatory.

 

From there, we get what are essentially nine layers, a mirror of the circles of Hell. 

 

First is a kind of waiting room outside of Purgatory proper. Here are the souls yet to be admitted to the purging process. According to Catholic doctrine, the prayers of the living are crucial here for the release of the waiting souls. (And, historically, rich people could pay an “indulgence” to the church to kickstart things…cue Luther and his hammer…) 

 

After that, there are levels for the purging of each of the seven deadly sins: Pride, Envy, Wrath, Sloth, Avarice, Gluttony, and Lust. With these completed, Dante emerges into an earthly paradise: the Garden of Eden restored. 

 

It was particularly fascinating to me how Dante ties all of the deadly sins to love in some way. To him, vices come from love that is inappropriate, or, more accurately, misdirected and out of balance. Envy is in a way the opposite of love, for example, because to envy someone is to fail to love them. But it is also misdirected love: love of what one envies, rather than for the one whom one envies. There is much that could be said, but I did find Dante’s conception to be worth thinking about. 

 

I won’t get into all of the specifics - there are plenty of online guides for that. What I do want to do is highlight some passages that I particularly enjoyed. Throughout the process of reading, I started with the poetic version, usually out loud, then followed up with the prose, primarily to figure out who the historical characters were.

 

Here is the opening, as Anderson translates it: 

 

Sets sail the little vessel of my mind

And henceforth better waters furrowing

Leaves such a cruel ocean far behind.

 

And of that Second Kingdom will I sing

Wherein the human spirit, purged of stain,

Grows worthy to ascend on heavenward wing.

 

This is one of the sections where the poetic seems superior to the prosiac - the gist is easy enough to understand, and the music of the meter adds to the experience. In contrast, here is Huse:

 

To move over better waters now hoists sail

The little vessel of my mind

Which leaves behind so rough a sea;

 

And I will sing of the second realm

Where the human spirit is cleansed

And becomes worthy to rise to Heaven. 

 

Huse is more literal and true to the original, but Anderson catches the cadence so much better here. 

 

Later in Canto I, Virgil explains for the first - but definitely not the last time - exactly how the non-dead Dante manages to get to the afterlife. 

 

This man has never seen his final night,

But by his folly had come near it, so

That little time was left to turn aright.

 

I was sent to him, as I let thee know,

For his redemption, and there was no road

Save this whereon I set myself to go.

 

I have shown him all the bad and their abode;

And now intend to show him the array

Of spirits who are purged beneath thy code.

            (Anderson)

 

Next is a bit from Canto VII, still outside of Purgatory proper, where certain souls wait in an analogue to Limbo. Here again, the contrast between prose and poetry is striking. It was easier to understand in the prose version, but the poetic version sung. 

 

There is a place below not otherwise

Tormented save with gloom, where the laments

Are uttered not in wailing but in sighs;

 

There I abide with little innocents

Bitten by fangs of Death and all undone

Ere yet exempt from man’s maleficence;

 

There I abide with those who put on none

Of the three holy virtues, yet who knew

The others, following guildless every one.

 

And the other version:

 

There is a place down there not sad through torment

But from darkness only, where the laments

Sound, not as groans, but as sighs.

 

There I stay with the little innocents

Bitten by the teeth of Death

Before they were exempt from human sin.

 

There I stay with those not clothed

With the three holy virtues, but who, without vice,

Knew the others and observed them all. 

 

The opening of Canto VIII is really beautiful, particularly in the poetic translation. 

 

Now was the hour that melts the heart anew

In voyagers with yearning for the shore

The day beloved friends have said adieu

 

And the new pilgrim feels the pang once more

Of love, on hearing from the far-off land

Bells that belike the parting day deplore

 

In Canto XIII, which is about envy, various historical and contemporary figures appear. One of the contemporary figures is noblewoman Sapia Salvani, who probably would be little known if Dante hadn’t gotten a bit of revenge at her in this part. One of her lines is excellent, however:

 

Sapient was I not, though named of it

Sapia; greeting with far greater glee

Another’s bane than mine own benefit.

 

Alternately:

 

Sapient I was not, though named Sapia.

I was much happier at others’ harm

Than at my own good fortune.

 

This is, in my opinion, the core value of MAGA: a glee at the harm Trump causes other people, who they hate, even as he makes things worse for everyone. 

 

In the next Canto, Guido del Duca gives an extended commentary on the downfall of various towns along the Arno - this is serious diss track smack talk. But he too notes that envy is, at its core, a desire that other people suffer. 

 

So Envy did the blood of me imbue,

That, had I seen a man grow joyful there,

Thou wouldst have seen me tinged with livid hue.

 

Or:

 

My blood was so on fire with envy

That if I had seen a man becoming happy

You would have observed my face grow pale.

 

In Canto XV, Dante expounds on this idea that the opposite of vice is divine love. Virgil, a personification of the intellect and of wisdom, talks at length about this. Envy is excessive desire for earthly good, a selfish grasping that does not admit of sharing. In this passage, I think Anderson buries the meaning in his attempt to preserve the poetry. The Huse version is more clear. Here are the highlights of the passage:

 

Because your desires are directed

Toward things diminished by sharing, 

Envy moves the bellows of your sighs

 

But if the love of the highest sphere

Lifted up your desires

That fear would not be in your hearts,

 

For the more up there who say “our,”

The greater the good each possesses

And brighter love glows in that cloister.

 

***

 

And he said to me, “Because you still

Set your mind on earthly things,

You gain darkness from the light itself.

 

The infinite and ineffable good above

Runs toward love for itself

As a ray of light to a bright surface.

 

As much brightness as it finds, so much it gives

So that the more widely love extends

The more eternal goodness grows upon it,

 

And the greater number who comprehend

And love each other, the more love there is, 

Since one gives to another, like a mirror.”

 

In the next Canto, there is another discussion, about whether things are fated, or brought about by human decisions. Here, Virgil comes down firmly on the side of free will. (Fascinating in this connection, of course, is the tension throughout Shakespeare’s works between fate and free will - it is Cassius, after all, who has the famous line, “The fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”) 

 

You who are living consider every cause

As originating in the heavens

As if they determined all, of necessity.

 

If this were so, free will would be destroyed,

And there would be no justice,

No joy for good nor sorrow for evil. 

(Huse)

 

In Virgil’s argument, the fates are not passive, but humans are given the ability to tell good from evil, and to choose good. So don’t go blaming the stars. 

 

In Canto XVII, Dante takes the position that Wrath isn’t mere anger, but a desire to harm others. Hence, he contrasts Wrath with peacemaking. 

 

I felt a fanning on my face like beat

Of wings, and heard, “Blest the Peacemakers are,

For wrath unrighteous hath in them no seat!”

(Anderson)

 

There is so much in here that I didn’t specifically write down. To a large degree, I just read and let the words wash over me through the poetic version, then went back to the prose version to make sure I understood things. 

 

I’ll end with the opening stanza of Canto XXIII, because, well, I feel seen. 

 

Because these eyes of mine yet never stirred

From the green foliage, like such an one

As wastes his life to hunt the little bird

(Anderson)

 

Divine Comedy is such a curious blend of history, personal grudges, theology, and above all imagination. I find it a bit disorienting to read at times, yet at its best, it contains glorious language, amazing word pictures, and an underlying ethic that feels so much more Christian than the individualistic faith tradition I was raised in. More than anything, it is a work that demands to be read out loud, and pondered.