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Purgatory · Cantos XXII to XXV

Gluttony and the Generation of the Soul

LoveArtRedemption

Summary of the cantos

The thread of these four cantos is the voice. Statius tells that he became a poet and a Christian because of some verses of Virgil, and the poem calls the chance a light carried behind. Dante recognizes Forese only when the face no longer says anything and the voice gives him back, and it is from Bonagiunta, a poet who stayed on the other side, that the name of Dante's school comes out. Gluttony, the sin of taste, occupies the rest: a tree that offers itself without being able to be eaten, a hunger that Forese calls consolation, and, in the last canto, the explanation of how a soul without a body still grows thin, speaks, laughs and weeps, because it forms in the air a body of itself. The explainer is Statius, not Virgil, which again marks where the reach of the pagan guide ends. The seventh ledge begins in fire and in hymn, and the part closes with the wound that, at last, is made whole again.

Canto XXII: Statius and the Tree of Gluttony

LoveArt

Summary of the canto

The angel who led them to the sixth ledge stayed behind, after scraping one of the seven P's from Dante's face and declaring blessed those who thirst for justice, with the sitiunt. Dante climbs lighter, without fatigue, behind the swift spirits, and Virgil begins to speak to Statius:

Analysis

Amore, / acceso di virtù, sempre altro accese, / pur che la fiamma sua paresse fore, love, kindled by virtue, always kindled another, provided that its flame appeared outside.

Virgil opens with a principle and applies it to himself: love kindled by virtue kindles another love, if the flame shows. The affection of Statius, which Juvenal had told him of in Limbo, was enough for him to love him without ever having seen him. The poem thus ties the doctrine of love to the poets: the flame passes from one to another through whoever sees it.

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Canto XXIII: Forese and the Thin Shades

ForgivenessRedemption

Summary of the canto

Dante fixes his eyes on the green foliage, like someone who loses his life hunting birds, and Virgil, more than a father, calls to him: son, come, for time is better spent if shared. He turns and follows the two sages, whose conversation makes his walking effortless. Then they hear, in weeping and song, Labia mea, Domine, in a way that brings both delight and pain. Dante asks his master what that is, and Virgil replies that they are shades who perhaps are untying the knot of what they owe. Like pensive pilgrims who, on the road, turn toward people they do not know and do not stop, so a throng of silent and devout souls comes up behind and overtakes them, marveling at them. The eyes of each are dark and hollow, the face pale, and so thin that the skin takes the shape of the bones. Dante thinks of Erysichthon, who was never so withered by hunger even when he feared it most, and of the people who lost Jerusalem when Mary sank her teeth into her son:

Analysis

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Canto XXIV: Bonagiunta and the Sweet New Style

LoveArtPolitics

Summary of the canto

Neither the speaking slowed the walking, nor the walking the speaking: Dante and the two masters go on in conversation, like a ship pushed by a good wind, and the shades, which seem like things already dead, marvel at him through the hollows of his eyes on noticing that he is still alive. Dante tells Forese Donati that the shade of Statius, of whom he was speaking, perhaps climbs more slowly than he would, because of another (the common reading understands Virgil, whose company it prolongs), and asks where Piccarda is and whether he sees anyone there worthy of note. Forese answers, without delay, about his sister:

Analysis

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Canto XXV: The Generation of the Soul

Fate and Free Will

Summary of the canto

It was the hour when the climb would brook no delay: the sun had left the circle of midday to Taurus, and the night to Scorpio. Like someone who does not stop and follows his way whatever appears, if the press of necessity wounds him, so the three enter through the opening, one behind another, on a stair so narrow that it arranges those who climb in a line. Dante is like the young stork that raises its wing with the will to fly and does not dare leave the nest, the will to ask kindled and quenched in him, until he takes the stance of one about to speak. Virgil does not let him, however quick the pace, and urges him to loose the arrow, since he has brought the cord all the way to the iron. Dante opens his mouth with confidence:

Analysis

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Reading of the block of cantos

Analysis

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