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Purgatory

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Dante the pilgrim Dante is the pilgrim who, in the second canticle, leaves the dead air of Hell, reaches at dawn the deserted shore of an island and climbs the mountain of Purgatory with the body of flesh with which he was born. That body is what sets him apart from everyone:... Virgil Virgil is the shade of the poet of Mantua, author of the Aeneid, who guided Dante through all of Hell and continues to guide him in the second canticle, this time as one who does not know the way. In Hell he knew the way; here he must ask, reason aloud and... Cato The old man who guards the shore of Purgatory is a solitary with a long white beard, whose face the four stars that only the first men saw illuminate, to the point that it seems the sun lights him. The text gives him no name. It says that he left life at... Manfred Manfred, whom tradition takes as king of Sicily, is the blond, handsome man of gentle appearance who, at the foot of the mountain, in Ante-Purgatory, identifies himself to Dante by showing a wound high on his chest and smiling, and says whose descendant he... Sordello Sordello is the Lombard soul, proud and disdainful, with honest, slow eyes, whom Dante and Virgil find alone in Ante-Purgatory and who, like a lion at rest, does not answer their request for the way. What makes him rise is the name of a land: Mantua. From... Marco Lombardo Marco Lombardo is a voice inside the smoke. The third turn of the mountain, that of wrath, is darker than Hell and than a night without a planet, and Dante walks through it with eyes closed, behind Virgil, as the blind man follows his guide. It is from there... Statius Statius is the Latin poet whom the mountain makes tremble. He appears on the fifth turn, behind Dante and Virgil, as Christ appeared to the two on the road, according to Luke, already risen from the tomb: he speaks before being seen and wishes peace. He had... Forese Donati Forese Donati is Dante's youthful friend, whom the pilgrim recognizes only by his voice. On the sixth turn, that of gluttony, the souls pass in silence and devotion, so thin that the skin takes the shape of the bones, and it is from one of them, who turns his... The poets of fire Guido Guinizelli and Arnaut are the two poets of love whom Dante meets on the last fire of the mountain, the ledge of lust, and the poem presents them together, one passing on to the other the praise he has just received. Guinizelli speaks first. He addresses... Matelda Matelda is the woman whom Dante finds on the other side of a stream in the Earthly Paradise, alone, singing and choosing flower among flowers, and whom he cannot name. Only in the last canto of the canticle does the poem give her name, and it gives it in... Beatrice Beatrice is the woman whom Purgatory has promised since the sixth canto and delivers in the thirtieth: the one whom Virgil names when he reaches the limit of what his reason can reach, the one who descends from a cloud of flowers on the riverbank in the...

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