Purgatorio Read Free Page B

(
Purg
. XXVIII.78). The long process that accounts for the correction (initiated in the opening cantos of
Inferno
) and perfection of his will (announced by Virgil in the closing lines of the previous canto) is finally complete. The rest of the poem will have, at its dramatic center, the correction and perfection of his intellect, 17 overseen by Beatrice and finally by St. Bernard. How much his intellect is in need of correction is immediately made clear by his failure to understand the kind of affection offered by Matelda, who, as a modern Leah, represents the active life of virtue, but is misconstrued by the protagonist, who frames her offer of brotherly love in inappropriately carnal terms.
    The climax of
Purgatorio
and, for many readers, of the entire poem occurs in the thirtieth canto when Beatrice, whose presence has been anticipated from the second canto of
Inferno
onward, finally appears. This scene seems to have been prepared as a kind of prothalamium, the preparation for a ceremony of marriage. But instead of preceding a wedding, it heralds a dressing down of the harshest kind. And now it is the living Dante’s turn to do some urgent ritual purging of his sins, involving the rite of confession, contrition, and satisfaction. It is only then, having owned up to his sins against Beatrice (the nature of these remains less than clear to most readers, but they seem to have involved both sexual and intellectual transgressions), that he is allowed to proceed, under the guidance of the mysterious Matelda, toward his ritual absolution, which is accomplished in the final lines of the final canto of the poem called
Purgatory
. In this place where “the root of humankind was innocent” (
Purg
. XXVIII.142), Dante has regained his own lost innocence and is only now prepared to ascend to the stars.
    (5)  
Measurement of Time in Purgatorio.
    The opening of this three-part poem shows us its protagonist, lost in sin, coming back to his senses on a Thursday night in late March or early April of the year 1300. He began his descent, led by Virgil, twenty-four hours later, on Friday evening. The journey to the depths of
Inferno
takes exactly twenty-four hours, while the ascent back to the surface of the earth requires still another full day. The travelers thus arrive at the shore of purgatory at 6 PM on Sunday, Jerusalem time, or at 6 AM as time is reckoned at the antipodes. Telling the time in the heavenly regions of
Paradiso
is a less certain enterprise. The poet and his new guide, Beatrice, depart from the earthly paradise at noon of the following Wednesday and seem to spend, as we reckon time on earth, some thirty hours traversing the heavens, with the implicit return to this world occurring roughly one week after the scene in the dark wood with which this theological epic began. Time in purgatory, on the other hand, is frequently measured with elaborate precision.
    In the fourteenth century the day was divided into readily remembered large periods, which may seem arbitrary to modern readers equipped with chronometers that are precise to the second. Dawn arrives at 6 AM ; “tierce” is the third hour of the day, or 9 AM ; the “sixth hour” is noon; “nones,” the ninth hour, falls at 3 PM ; the hour of Vespers arrives with the declining sun, between 3 PM and 6 PM (depending on the season); and evening arrives at 6 PM . Most of Dante’s time indications are based on these convenient units.
    The opening scene is played against the backdrop of the rising sun of Easter Sunday. In Canto III the early hours of morning brighten the landscape as the poets begin to climb. The meeting with Manfred is over by about 9 AM (
Purg
. III.15–16) and that with Belacqua at noon (IV.137–139). Virgil’s conversation with Sordello concludes as the sun is moving downward, i.e., after 3 PM (VII.43). It is sunset in the Valley of the Princes (VIII.1–3) and 8:30 PM when Dante falls asleep. His dream occurs just before the dawn of Monday