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that these sins are significantly his? Perhaps so. He is explicit about his pridefulness while claiming the merest touch of envious behavior (
Purg
. XIII.133–138), but those two other details—the blinding smoke and the afflicting flames—may associate him with Wrath and Lust, as what we know of his life and personality would lead us to believe.
    Dante uses exemplary figures to represent both the virtue that directly opposes the vice repented and, ultimately, as
exempla
of the vice itself, the second a technique we are familiar with from
Inferno
. Thus the penitents are at first encouraged to love virtue and finally forced to confront the shame of their former vice. As Wenzel 12 and Delcorno 13 have established, Dante is heavily indebted to the writings of Peraldus on exemplary figures drawn from biblical texts. 14 This middle part of the canticle is the locus of the poem most dedicated to the use of exemplification, a technique of representation associated with ecclesiastical instruction and broadened by Dante to include classical literature and art.
    The experience of purgation centers on a ritual performance of the final act of the sacrament of confession, 15 the giving of satisfaction on the part of the penitent sinner, the
satisfactio operis
(satisfaction by works) that alone may lead to absolution. It is of course true that each sinner who is saved has already, in one way or another, made amends to God for his former sinfulness. Salvation is certainly to be understood as impossible without that. Yet it would seem that Dante considered some amendment as having been tentative (thus accounting for such things as delays at Ostia and stays in ante-purgatory). In any case, the only souls who would seem to be exempt from atonement now are those who were utterly untouched by a given sin and thus do not need to purge themselves on that particular terrace. An individual’s presence in penitence on any terrace indicates that person’s need to proceed in an act of self-reproach, reflecting the contrition and confession that marked his or her freedom from sin on earth, as well as the words spoken to God’s priest in promise of good works to come. And it seems to be only this last element that requires urgent attention here on the seven-storied mountain. Perhaps one way to think of this is that the offer of satisfaction, at least for some sinners, was more of a promise than an accomplishment, and that, for such as them, purgatory offers the opportunity for the fulfillment of that promise.
    Unlike the denizens of
Inferno
and
Paradiso
, those in
Purgatorio
exist in real, present time. Inhabitants of the other two
cantiche
are in their eternal condition with one major exception: in both realms souls will receive their bodies to wear for eternity only at the Last Judgment. They are aware of time, but do not act in it (and those in hell are denied knowledge of the present—see
Inf.
X.97–108). All in ante-purgatory or purgatory are timebound 16 until such time as their penance is completed. This accounts for the leisurely sense—they are passing the time—we find in the characters in ante-purgatory, awaiting their turn for expiation, as well as for the intense and concentrated effort we observe in all those who are in active purgation higher up the mountain, pressing against the limits of time in their urgency.
    At the core of this theological epic lies insistence on the free will’s directing itself to the proper form of love. That will be the subject of the speeches of Marco the Lombard and of Virgil in the sixteenth and seventeenth cantos of this
cantica
. Our natural goodness, mirrored in our loving natures, is easily diverted from praiseworthy objects of affection. It is here in purgatory that the free will rediscovers its better affections.
    (4)  
The Earthly Paradise.
    Once Dante’s will “is free, upright, and sound” (
Purg
. XXVII.140), he is allowed to enter the sacred space “chosen for mankind as its nest”