Purgatorio

Dante invites the reader to recall fog dissipating on a hillside. That is how the smoke cloud fades away to reveal the setting sun. Dante muses on how imagination can play tricks with perception, as visions of wrath blossom and fade in his mind. First, the “godless wrath” of one who became a bird “left its footprint in my brain” (236). Next, he sees a crucified man surrounded by Esther, Mordecai, and Ahasuerus. Finally, bursting like a bubble rising in water, the final image is of Lavinia weeping and confronting her mother, Amata.

As light shatters sleep, light shatters Dante’s visions. He hears a voice directing him to climb. Dante wants to know who is speaking to him. Virgil tells him it is a divine spirit whose welcome they should accept. As he reaches the first step, Dante feels wings fan his face and hears the words, “Beati pacifici” (Blessed are the peacemakers) (238). The sun sets, revealing stars above. Dante and Virgil arrive at the top of the stairs, where they are stuck like beached ships. Dante asks Virgil about the level’s purgation, Virgil replies that it’s sloth.

Virgil discusses the nature of love, which motivates all things, good and bad. “The natural love can never go astray” (238), he explains, but “mind-love” can lead humans to sin when it is either misapplied or applied with too much or too little vigor. The first three sins misunderstand the nature of excellence and result in sins against our neighbors. Pride mistakenly leads people to believe that they need to keep others down in order to excel themselves. Envy mistakenly leads people to believe that they will lose importance if others rise to prominence. Wrath mistakenly leads one to bear a grudge and exact revenge.

Sloth, the sin that Dante will purge on the current level, results from not pursuing love vigorously enough. The final three sins—greed, avarice, and lust—are excesses of love, whereby what may be good or necessary when filtered through love of God (such as food and clothing, power, or love of people), becomes the end in itself and thus loses sight of God. Virgil will say no more about these to Dante, as he will discover more about them at the levels to come.

Dante asks Virgil to elaborate on love that leads to both good and bad. Virgil explains that “apprehension” involves perceiving what exists in the world, creating a composite image of that object, and finally assessing whether that object is good or bad for one’s continued existence. Humans want what is good for them. Inclining oneself to what is good “is called love” (241). As fire, by natural inclination, moves upward, humans move toward things that will bring them joy. From this, Virgil concludes that not all forms of love deserve our praise.

Dante worries that this negates free will to make good or bad decisions. Virgil says that he will respond, but “[…] beyond that, faith’s required” (242), thus Dante will have to wait for Beatrice. Virgil then says that humans have the power to love within them. They are not aware of this power until it manifests itself in some action, as trees are only known to be alive when they grow leaves. The will to love itself is a fact, neither good nor bad. Humans have “counselling powers” that regulate their capacity for love, leading them to make good and bad decisions. Moral laws exist because humans have the freedom to make good and bad decisions. Virgil concludes that this capacity to restrain oneself, to make choices, is what Beatrice means by free will.

The moon has risen. The discussion provokes drowsiness in Dante, but wakefulness jolts him when a group of penitents suddenly appear. They move as quickly as frenzied Bacchantes, two shouting and weeping. Virgil notes that they seek to repent for their slothful pasts. He asks them the way forward, and they urge him and Dante to follow them as they cannot pause. The penitents move out of sight, and Dante’s thoughts wander. He becomes drowsy and closes his eyes, “transforming all my thinking into dream” (245).