In Roman Catholic doctrine, Purgatory is where the dead did penance for sins and accomplished the spiritual growth they had not been able to accomplish on earth. This makes a sort of sense; after all, only perfection can exist in heaven, and most of us do not die spiritually perfect; if God simply suddenly made us perfect, there would not be the same cooperation of the will with God. At the same time, Catholics also believed that the prayers of the living can help the dead get out of Purgatory sooner.
    Purgatory is both like and unlike Hell; The different terraces correspond to the different circles of Hell, and the severity of the punishment, against, corresponds to its offense against love, the intellect and God. At the bottom of Hell is the supreme evil - traitors and Satan itself; at the top of Mt. Purgatory is the Earthly Paradise from which Adam and Eve were expelled, imagined at the exact opposite side of the globe from Jerusalem. In Hell the damned are basically separated by their hatred from each other, and usually do not what even to be mentioned on earth, and, of course, they hate their punishment. In Purgatory those being purified love and help each other and love their punishment which brings them closer to God. In Hell the damned are damned largely because they embraced some passion, desire, etc. that was thought good by the world (food, sex, power, wealth, fame etc.). In Purgatory they consciously reject those early benefits, choosing the heavenly. There is a sense in the poem of the fragility of all that is earthly, and indeed, while both Hell and Paradise are eternal, Purgatory is a transitory conditions, rather like earthly life itself.

    Your selection begins as Dante and Vergil emerge from the other side of the world to the foot of Mt. Purgatory. They first meet Cato, who challenges them, thinking they are spirits escaped out of Hell. Note that, when Vergil mentions to Cato his dear wife Monica, that Cato says that "She can no longer move me.... (pg. 220, col. 2). The point to see here is that Cato has given up (even though he too is of the damned) all those earthly attractions. However, do not think that this abstinence is permanent; in Heaven, once souls are completely pure, they can enjoy themselves again even to a higher degree, because their pleasure cannot in any way do anything but increase their love of God. Note too that at the end of Canto I Vergil washes the stains of Hell off Dante, which symbolizes the first stage of his cleansing - he will need three more baths.
In Canto II the ship carrying the blessed dead arrives at the Mt. of Purgatory. (For illustration, Click here.) The crew is singing the hymn In exitu Israel de Aegypto because they have left the 'Egypt' ( = land of evil) of this life for the promised land of God. Notice the joy which Dante meets the musician Casella who begins to entertain him with one of Dante's own songs which he set to music; notice too the harsh rebuke Dante gets from Cato (column 2 pg. 222) -- they are not there to attend to their own pleasure, but to go about the business of their reformation.    As I noted above, this is a place where the pleasures of the world are given up.
        Before Dante and Vergil get to the gates of Purgatory proper, they meet three classes of people who must stay outside for a time, because they were very tardy in finally coming to God. These correspond to those blown about spirits right outside of Hell, who refused to commit to God or Satan and thus are blown forever between the worlds. At the same time, we also see God's mercy, Who is willing to accept any sinner, no matter how harsh his or her sins or how late their repentance, as long as it is sincerely made. Notice how the Emperor Manfred (page 224, col. 1) asks Dante to mention him to the Empress Constanza, whose prayers will help him get out of Purgatory sooner. Note also the principle of poetic justice, that the punishment fits the sin as the indolent (= the lazy) here are barely able to move, as they were slow to move toward salvation in this life.  (For illustration, click here.)
        In Canto V note how Vergil chides Dante for being over-curious of what people say about him. These last people are those who came to God at the last, but they are less severely punished because they died by violence and before their proper age. What is also important to see here, as Buonconte tells his story, is how this story shows us the love of God (linked of course to the Virgin Mary) who wishes to save anybody, even one who repents at the last moment. Note the vivid description of the destruction of Buonconte's body, which suggests the fragility of human flesh as compared to eternal spiritual reality.
        As noted above, Dante's poem also is much concerned with the condition of Italy, which is falling into chaos because the popes are improperly getting themselves involved in politics, because the Holy Roman Emperor is not paying proper attention to the affairs of Italy, and because the Italians themselves are violent, irreligious and greedy especially his Florentines.
        In Canto VII Dante learns the rule that, in Purgatory one can only move during the daylight, which is symbolic of the theological principle that true spiritual progress is only possible with the help of the light of Divine Knowledge.
        In Canto IX the Poets finally come to the gate of Purgatory proper, where they are met by an angel.  The three steps up to the Gate symbolize the three components of a perfect confession: a candid telling of your sins, a true feeling of guilt for your sins, and a enormous gratitude that God has forgiven you of your sins. Dante will make a more perfect confession later, before Beatrice. Then the angel with the sword puts seven Ps on Dante's forehead (the 'P' stands for Peccatum = 'sin'). As Dante's soul is cleaned of each of the seven main sins, (one per terrace) a P will be erased. Note that the angel warns Dante that anybody who looks back (that is, upon the old world of Hell and the flesh) will be sent out. True conversion requires a complete rejection of the old life. Note too how the noise the gates make informs the whole Mount of Purgatory that another soul is prepared to be cleansed, at fact all rejoice about, and thank God for.
        The reference to the Needle's eye in Canto X refers to the Gospel verse that declares that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.'. This probably refers to the notion that all desire for worldly wealth, in all its forms, must be abandoned. Note the climb upward is hardest at the bottom; it will become easier and easier the higher you go, which again is a principle of spiritual development.  (For illustration, click here.)
        At the beginning of each new level the Dante will see paintings or sculptures or other items that depict some virtuous action that is the opposite of the sin that is punished on that level. These examples are mostly taken from Judeo-Christian and pagan sources. These panels are supposed to make the reformed sinner work harder to cleanse themselves of that vice. For example, in this level (Canto X) the sin of Pride (one of the worst) is being cleansed, and thus the penitents see examples of humility; the first is the Virgin Mary, who agrees humbly to allow God to use her as his chosen vessel to bear the Christ, and then a depiction of King David (the humble Psalmist) putting off his royal dignity and dancing before the Ark of the Covenant; the third shows the Roman Emperor Trajan stooping to give justice to a poor woman.
        In Canto XI we can observe another practice of Purgatory, that the penitent recite prayers that mirror their spiritual condition, this one based on the Lord's Prayer. It is the child's first prayer, and indicates that, since Pride is the most basic of sins, the Proud must start over as spiritual children. The penitents that Dante meets and talks with represent individuals who sinned through pride in their status due to birth, pride in their abilities, pride in their worldly power. Since pride makes a person elevate themselves above others, these penitents are crushed into the weight of huge stones, the bigger their former pride, the bigger the stone, which shows us the poetic justice of their punishments.  (For illustration, click here) One of the last individuals mentioned, Provenzan Salvani, was saved in part because he humbled himself to save a friend (see bottom of col. 2, pg. 231). Note how Oderisi, as the canto ends, predicts Dante's coming exile.
        Another feature of the end of each of the levels, is that, just as at the beginning we see examples of the virtue opposite to the vice, we see here examples of the sin. Thus the Poets see depicted Satan (one who was created noble), who fell from heaven through the sin of pride, and various of the Giants of Greek mythology, who through their arrogant pride tried to conquer Mt. Olympus and were destroyed by the gods, plus other famous examples. As Dante prepares to leave this level, note how an Angel comes and removes with the touch of its wing one of the Ps from Dante's forehead. This makes travel easier for Dante, for Pride is a terrible burden.
        In your reading we leap forward several levels and Cantos to Canto XX, where Dante becomes scared feeling the Mountain tremble under him. But this is nothing terrible, as the hymn "Glory to God in the Highest" suggests. In the next Canto they meet a figure who explains that the Mountain shook with joy because a soul was just released out of Purgatory and is on its way to heaven -- just as earlier a lesser noise had announced that a soul was entering into Purgatory. We get an explanation of why this is so that recalls Aristotle's physics; Aristotle believed that objects fall because they tend to move to the level that is appropriate to them. Since matter is dense, it tends to collect in the center of the universe (which Aristotle thought the world was) and thus objects fall. The redeemed sinner, once cleaned of sin, is now suited to live in the upper reaches of Heaven, and thus feels a desire to mount upward, and in fact does. But this ghost is no ordinary member of the Penitent; this shade is Statius, a Roman poet living about two hundred years after Vergil who, like Dante, wrote a great poem (the Thebaid) and admired Vergil. The difference is that Statius, being born after Christ, was able to become a Christian, and in fact he claims that Vergil's own poetry (the 4th Eclogue) had started him on his journey to becoming a Christian (see page 236). But because he was a Christian in secret, he has had to spend a lot of time in purgatory (about 400 years), just for this sinful delay. He has spent the rest of the time paying off other sins, most recently the sin of wastefulness, which is linked to at this level to the sin of greed.
        The punishment of this level is a type of hunger and, instead of pictures, the poets see an apple tree (pg. 237 ;For illustration, click here.) which tells instances of people showing the opposite of greed and wastefulness punished here. In Canto XXIII they see the penitents of this level, who, to pay for their sin, are shown starving. (pg. 237). In a part of this passage I did not give to you Statius gives an elaborate explanation to Dante concerning how it is possible for spirits, which are not made of flesh, to suffer starvation. Essentially, the explanation is that, just as the mortal soul, working through the heart, forms the fetus from the mother's blood, so the soul, after death, can form out of air another type of body which, in cooperation with the divine will, can feel pain etc.
        By Canto XXVII the Poets' are ready to leave the last terrace of punishment, which punishes lust; it is the last (and easiest) of the punishments, just as the first circle of the true punishments of hell was for misplaced erotic love. Dante, to cross over to the earthly paradise, must cross over a wall of fire.  (For illustration, click here.) This fire both symbolizes the fires of lust, as well as the myth that the Garden of Eden was, after the fall of humanity, surrounded by a wall of fire. Dante is nervous, and only the invocation of Beatrice gets him across, and, once across, he loses his last P. (238, col. 2).
        At this point, after they wake up after the night's sleep, they have come to the limit of Vergil's knowledge. The natural knowledge that arises from experience with material world can understand sin and repentance. But true paradise and Heaven can only be understood by the Christian revelation, which is forever denied Vergil. This he says that they have come to a place where he can no longer discern. (bottom of col. 2, pg. 238). Notice that Vergil (top of next column of next page) crowns Dante now as master of himself. That is, sin is ultimately a type of slavery; and thus now Dante is truly free.
        They now come (Canto XXVIII) to the Earthly Paradise in which Adam lived before the fall, whose gorgeous beauties the Poets admire. The poets meet Matilda, who represents the active life, that is, the life of this world, but in a perfected state. Dante first must understand the human paradise God made for mortal humanity before he can grasp the eternal paradise that God made for our spiritual selves.
Dante questions Matilda on how, since there is no weather in Purgatory, there can be any wind or vegetation. She points out that the wind arises from the earth rotating through the atmosphere (which to Dante extends to the orbit of the Moon). The air, as it strikes the mountain, is 'impregnated' with a sort of essence that causes the earth to bring forth plant life, both here and in the world below, since people of Dante's time believed that some plants grew without seeds.
        Matilda tells Dante about two rivers he must drink of. The first is Lethe, which gives a forgetfulness of all sin, and then Eunoe, which makes you remember all the good deeds you have done.
        In Canto XXIX Dante sees an allegorical pageant that represent Christian truth and the Bible.  (For illustration, click here) The candleholder with its seven branches represent the Light of Gods' Truth with the Seven gifts of the Holy spirit. Then comes a procession. The first 24 elders represent the books of the Old Testament. The four animals represent the four Gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The Griffin that draws the Chariot of the Church represents Jesus, who, just as the griffin is composed of two animals, so Christ is both man and god combined. The three maidens that follow (col. 1, middle, page 242) represent the three main Christian virtues of Faith, Hope and Love, and the four purple figures represent the natural virtues of Prudence, Justice, Courage and Temperance. The two elders that follow represent Luke (the Doctor, follower of Hippocrates) and St. Paul. The four of humble aspect represent the writers of the minor New Testament epistles, and the final elder is the writer of the Book of Revelation.
        In Canto XXX the members of the pageant sing a song from the Songs of Songs of Solomon (in which the Hebrew king summons his wife from Lebanon); they are calling for Beatrice. Dante becomes quite nervous, and when he turns to Vergil he is gone! But this is necessary, for we are at a point where only Christian knowledge can exist, and Beatrice must give the next stage of revelations. Dante is encouraged to look to Beatrice, who enters, veiled - because Dante has some final work to do before he is worthy to see her unveiled.
        In the second half of this Canto and in the beginning of the next Beatrice rebukes Dante out for his neglect of the gifts that God gave him and how he seems to no longer follow her after she was dead. Since in part Beatrice is a symbol of the Divine light and God, by rejecting (or rather, what she stood for for him) Dante rejected the light of God's truth. Beatrice makes him explain himself. Dante confesses (top page 245, col. 1) that the false pleasures of the world made him turn aside his steps. Finally, under the weight of these accusations Dante faints, only to take up in the middle of the stream of Lethe in the arms of Matilda (middle of col. 2). The point is that before Dante can forget his sin, he must acknowledge it completely. In the Catholic church the rite of confession, in which the penitent tells his confession to the priest, who, in Jesus' name absolves him or her of sin, is an essential ritual for achieving forgiveness. Once Dante has made his heartfelt confession, then and only then, can true forgiveness and forgetfulness of sin follow.
        As I noticed in Class, role Dante gives Beatrice is rather extraordinary. There is no evidence at all from history that the real Beatrice was any saint, yet here Beatrice has been given a role to rival the great saints of Christianity. It think an essential point to remember here is that what we are seeing here is what Beatrice meant for Dante. It was only through his absolute admiration for Beatrice that Dante was able to learn the sort of spiritual and selfless love that Christianity demands at its ideal. Thus this Beatrice is the ideal woman of Dante's imagination.
        Dante is conducted back to the chariot, and notice here that Dante gets his first truly divine vision as he sees the Griffin, who symbolizes Christ, shining both with his divine and human natures. This is like the beatific vision, the ultimate vision of God, which shall end the whole Comedy. In Catholic doctrine one of the highest delights of heaven would be to see God in his mystery which is beyond ordinary comprehension. And now too Dante is allowed to look upon Beatrice unveiled, and see how she too has been gloriously transformed.
        In Canto XXXII Dante is presented with another pageant symbolic of Church history. The tree, despoiled represents the world after the fall of Adam. the Griffin ( = Jesus) makes it bloom again by reversing the results of the Fall though his sacrifice. The fact that Dante temporarily falls asleep points to the peacefulness of the place and perhaps also, when Dante wakes up, we understand he has moved to a new level of understanding. The blooming tree is the church, and in the pageant that continues it is first attacked by the bird of Jove (= eagle) which represents the attack by pagan emperors on the Church. The Fox represents early Christian heresies. The later emperors protected the Church, and thus the eagle later comes and sheltered the church. The Dragon ( = Satan) also attacks,. and bits its, and the tree is transformed into the monster of the book of Revelation, which for Dante symbolizes the corrupt Catholic church that has been tempted fatally by the devil.
        In Canto XXXIII, the last of the Purgatorio , Beatrice tells Dante (middle of col. 2, page 248) that soon there will come One (probably a Holy Roman emperor) who will destroy this corruption of the Church. Notice that, as Beatrice chides Dante for his lack of understanding, Dante seems to have totally forgotten that he had more or less forsaken Beatrice; but this is right, for the drink from Lethe took away all memory of sin. Finally Dante is brought to the waters of Eunoe (= good mind) , which makes him remember all the good that he has done, which also totally revives all virtues in him.  (For illustration, click here.) Thus strengthened, Dante is ready to ascend to Paradise.

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