Summary of the cantos
The ascent ends in three changes of tone. The first is fire: on the ledge of lust, the souls walk among the flames, cross in two bands that kiss quickly and cry out, each, the example of its own error, and it is there that Dante meets the poets of love, Guinizelli, whom he calls father, and Arnaut, who answers him in Provençal. The second is the farewell: Virgil, who has led him since the forest, can bring him into the wall of fire only by the name of Beatrice, accompanies him to the last step and declares that from there on Dante's will is guide enough. The third is the passage to the garden: in the Earthly Paradise, a woman who sings while gathering flowers explains the winds, the plants and the two waters of the place, and a parade of symbolic figures, announced by a flash and a melody, reaches the riverbank and stops. The question that runs through the four cantos is what it means to be free to guide oneself: Virgil proclaims it at the end of canto XXVII, and the rest of the part shows the place to which that freedom leads.
Canto XXVI: The lustful, Guinizelli and Arnaut
Summary of the canto
Virgil and Dante walk in single file along the edge of the ledge, between the drop and the fire, and the master keeps warning: watch yourself, for I warn you. The sun, already low, strikes Dante's right shoulder and turns the western sky from blue to white, and the shadow of the living body makes the flame redder, a sign enough for many souls to take notice. They remark that this does not seem like a fictitious body, and some come as near as they can, always careful not to leave the stretch where they burn. One of them, who addresses him as one who comes after the others, not out of slowness but perhaps out of respect, asks for an answer, for it burns with thirst and fire; all the others are more thirsty to hear him than an Indian or an Ethiopian is for cold water. She wants to know how he makes himself a wall against the sun, as though he had not yet entered the net of death.
Dante was going to answer, but is diverted by another novelty: through the middle of the burning path comes a crowd with faces turned toward the first, and the shades of one band and of the other run to kiss, one by one, without stopping, content with a brief festivity, like ants that nuzzle one another in a dark line, perhaps to learn the way and their fortune. On parting, before taking the first step, each band strives to shout louder than the other: those who arrive shout Sodom and Gomorrah, and the others, that Pasiphae entered the cow so that the bull would run to her lust. Then, like cranes that fly, part for the Rhipaean mountains and part for the sands, these fleeing the ice, those the sun, one crowd goes and the other comes, and all return, weeping, to the first songs and to the cry most suited to them. Those who had asked draw near again, attentive to hear.
Analysis
Dante answers: his body was not left there, neither green nor ripe, it is here with blood and joints; he climbs so as to stop being blind, because above a lady obtains grace for him, and for that reason he carries the mortal through their world. He asks that their greatest desire be quickly satisfied, and that the heaven full of love shelter them, and that they tell him who they are and who the crowd is that goes backward, so that he may still write it down on paper. The shades are troubled like the rustic mountaineer who enters the city and falls silent, but astonishment, in lofty hearts, passes quickly. The one who first addressed him says he is fortunate to bring experience of his lands to die better, and explains: those who move away shouting Sodom offended in such a way that Caesar, on triumphing, heard himself called Queen against himself, and they add shame to the burning. As for them:
Nostro peccato fu ermafrodito; / ma perché non servammo umana legge, / seguendo come bestie l’appetito
, our sin was hermaphrodite; but because we did not keep human law, following appetite like beasts.
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Canto XXVII: The wall of fire and Virgil's farewell
Summary of the canto
The poet marks the hour by four places: the sun is as it is when it casts its first rays on Jerusalem, where its creator shed blood, while the Ebro falls under Libra and the waves of the Ganges blaze at noon. On the mountain, the day is ending when God's angel appears to them, joyful, outside the flame, on the bank, singing Beati mundo corde with a voice far livelier than human. He says then that one does not go further if the fire does not first bite, and bids the holy souls enter it and not be deaf to the song from the other side. Dante, hearing him, stands like one placed in a grave: he bends over his folded hands, looks at the fire, and forcefully imagines human bodies already seen burning.
Analysis
Canto XXVIII: Matelda and the waters of Eden
Summary of the canto
Eager to explore within and around the divine forest, dense and alive, which tempered the new day to the eyes, Dante leaves the bank without waiting and takes the meadow slowly, over a soil that smells on every side. A sweet breeze, always the same, strikes his forehead no harder than a gentle wind, and the leaves, trembling, all bend toward where the mountain casts its first shadow; but not so much that the little birds in the branches stop practicing their art; rather, they receive the first hours singing among the leaves, which make their bass, as in the pinewood of Chiassi, by the shore, when Aeolus releases the sirocco. His slow steps have already taken him so far into the ancient forest that he no longer sees where he entered.
Analysis
Canto XXIX: The procession
Summary of the canto
The woman on the other bank sings like one in love, and continues with the end of her words: Beati quorum tecta sunt peccata. Like nymphs who walked alone through the wild shadows, one wishing to see the sun, another to flee from it, she moves against the current, climbing the bank, and Dante follows her, small step by small step. Not a hundred paces lay between the two when the banks make an equal curve, and he finds himself turned toward the east. They had scarcely gone further when the lady turns fully toward him and says: my brother, look and listen. A sudden flash runs through the whole great forest, so that he doubts it is lightning; but lightning ceases as it comes, and this one, lasting, shines more and more, and Dante thinks: what thing is this? A sweet melody runs through the luminous air, and good zeal makes him rebuke the boldness of Eve:
Analysis
Reading of the block of cantos
Analysis