Purgatorio, Canto IX

St. Peter’s Gate. Class notes on Canto IX of Dante's Purgatorio.

By Rick Reed

1. Lines 1-9 offer a complicated classical allusion to Aurora, generally regarded as the goddess of the dawn, and her Trojan lover Tithonus. Aurora had asked Zeus to give him immortality but forgot to give him eternal youth. Which phrase in the canto’s opening provides that detail concerning his age?

“Full of years”

The opening is complicated because of the description of the constellation Scorpio. The reference to the “third hour’s wings already dropping low” places the time at around 9:00 PM. Rather than dawn, the description must be of moonrise, not sunrise. If so, Dante has created a new twist on the myth of Aurora and Tithonus.

In lines 7-8, the allusion to Adam connects to man’s sinful and therefore weakened state. What weakness does Dante succumb to here that he did not exhibit in Inferno?

He needs to sleep.

Hell is without time while Purgatory exists in time. Therefore, there was no need for sleep.

Martinez interprets the fact that Dante sleeps on the grass as a connection to a passage in Isaiah — “All flesh is grass” (Isaiah 40:6)

2. Lines 13-18 describe Dante’s dream as he sleeps. At what time does the dream occur?

Some nine hours have passed since “It was [now] the hour before the morning.” It is the time of prophetic dreams.

What is the effect of the imagery of lines 19-33?

These lines are rife with violence: 1) the eagle is “intent to fall for prey,” 2) the resemblance of the hill to the one where Ganymede was “rapt [seized violently] to the council of the gods,” 3) the eagle “is used to striking,” 4) “terrible as a thunderbolt it fell/and swept me upward to the rings of fire,” and 5) the flaming of the eagle enveloping the pilgrim as well.

Since we will learn that the dream occurs as St. Lucy is carrying the sleeping Dante up to St. Peter’s gate, all of this violence seems to describe the grace of God. John Donne takes a similar approach to grace in his “Batter my heart three-person’d God.”

3. Consider the epic simile of lines 34-42. In light of lines 55-63, how does Dante’s experience in this canto thus far parallel and contrast with that of Achilles?

Both are carried in their sleep to another location: 1) Achilles down from Chiron’s mountain training center to the island of Scyros, 2) Dante up from the Valley of Kings to the St. Peter’s Gate. Each was carried by a woman: Achilles by his mother and Dante by St. Lucy in her second appearance in the Commedia, first in Canto II where Mary sends her to send Beatrice on a mission for Dante’s sake.

Both will move beyond those locations with contrasting ends: 1) Achilles will leave to fight at Troy and die there, 2) Dante will ascend Mt. Purgatory and ultimately go on to Heaven, the place of life everlasting.

One more simile, lines 64-67, begins a transition from the delaying of Ante-Purgatory to the ascent of Mt. Purgatory. How does this simile impact his interpretation of his dream?

The dream itself seems threatening, but the reality is that his trip up the mountain has been facilitated. He has to rethink his circumstances and his perception of the dream.

In his second apostrophe to the Reader (lines 70-72), how does he explain his change and emphasize the transition?

He now “exalt[s] the matter of [his] song” and will go forward employing “greater art.”

4. How does the entry appear before he comes nearer to it (lines 73-75)?

It initially seems a mere breach. Closer, it is clearly a gate.

What new features become clear to his vision (lines 76-78)?

He notices three steps and a guardian angel.

What is the symbolic significance of each of the three steps (lines 93-102)?

The first step is “all a white marble scoured and cleaned so bright/I saw myself in it as in glass.”

The second step is “soft and rough-cut stone,/veined with cracks all over and across,/and darker than the darkest violet-brown.”

The third “looked like a block of fiery porphyry/red as the blood that spurts out of a vein.”

Since the first commentators on the Commedia recorded their interpretations, most have seen in the three steps the three stages of the rite of confession. The first suggests the sense of conviction regarding one’s sin which requires self-knowledge. That view is supported by the poet’s words: “I saw myself in it as in a glass”; self-knowledge requires reflection. The second stage is remorse which requires acknowledgement of the brokenness of the soul articulated in the spoken confession. This view is supported by the cracks in the violet-brown stone of the step. The third is the forgiveness of sins given by the priest (absolution). The “fiery porphyry” is “red as the blood that spurts out of a vein.” The blood of Christ effects forgiveness.

Lines 106-110 further support the steps as an image of confession. Virgil instructs Dante to kneel before the guardian angel as the penitent kneels before a priest in confession. Then the pilgrim “beat [his] breast three times” and begs for the angel’s mercy recalling the penitent’s standard words in the confessional: Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, “By my fault, by my fault, by my most grievous fault.”

The angel marks the pilgrim’s forehead with seven P’s, one for each of the seven deadly sins, the penance for which Dante will witness in his ascent of the mountain. P is the initial letter of the Latin word peccatum, “sin.” Each P may also stand for paenitentia, “penance.”

What do you make of the guardian angel’s robe being compared to “The shoveled earth as dry as dust or ash” (line 115)?

The angel’s robe is a color reminiscent of the crosses placed on believers’ foreheads on Ash Wednesday.

What do the two keys symbolize and why are the colors gold and silver (lines 117-120)

They are the keys entrusted to Peter in Matthew 16:19 — “And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

Critics see the keys as discretion (the silver key) and power (the gold key). The latter forgives while the former is the prudence to decide.

What is the intent of lines 127-129?

Peter instructed the guardian angel to lean toward leniency.

“Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.” — Matthew 18:22

Why are lines 130-132 relevant?

It is one of the rules of Purgatory that encourages the souls to keep moving forward toward salvation rather than look back on the sinful world from which they come. The lines recall Luke 9:62— “But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”