Who He Is
Virgil is the shade of the poet of Mantua, author of the Aeneid, who guided Dante through the whole Inferno 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 pray to the sun, and the poem makes of this a lesson on the measure of what reason reaches. He is, in the common reading, human reason, and the text gives him a speech of his own about the two limits that define it: reason reaches as far as it sees, and the rest belongs to Beatrice, because it is a work of faith. He is also the master of two poets, Dante and Statius, who owe him their fine style and, in Statius's case, his faith; and he is a pagan of Limbo, so he accompanies an ascent in which he does not take part, and what he says of Limbo, in the Canto III and the Canto VII, is what the poem leaves of him. What defines him from end to end is the office of guiding, and what Purgatory shows is the hour when that office ends, in Canto XXX of Purgatory, when Dante turns and the place is empty.
Trajectory
In Canto I of Purgatory, when the old guardian of the shore asks who escaped the eternal prison, it is Virgil who makes Dante kneel and who answers for him. He says that they did not come of their own accord, that a lady of heaven sent help for that man, and he presents the pilgrim by what he seeks, not by what he did. Then he appeals to tenderness, by the name of the old man's wife, who lives in Limbo, and the reply corrects him:
Ma se donna del ciel ti move e regge, / come tu di’, non c’è mestier lusinghe: / bastisi ben che per lei mi richegge, but if a lady of heaven moves you and guides you, as you say, there is no need for flattery: it is enough that you ask me in her name.
Virgil understands, girds the disciple with the rush and washes his face with the dew. In Canto II of Purgatory he recognizes from afar the angel ferryman and orders Dante to kneel; to the souls who arrive he answers that he and his disciple are pilgrims like them. When Cato interrupts Casella's song, he leaves with Dante as quickly as the souls flee. In Canto III of Purgatory the remorse is his, not his disciple's: haste took the dignity from his step, and the conscience, which the text calls worthy and clean, feels bitter over a small error. It is in this canto that he states the rule that most speaks to himself:
State contenti, umana gente, al quia; / ché, se potuto aveste veder tutto, / mestier non era parturir Maria, be content, human race, with the quia; for, had you been able to see everything, there would have been no need for Mary to give birth.
Then he names Aristotle and Plato, the people who desired without fruit and receive desire eternally as grief. The phrase stays in the middle:
io dico d’Aristotile e di Plato / e di molt’ altri»; e qui chinò la fronte, / e più non disse, e rimase turbato, I mean Aristotle and Plato and many others; and here he bowed his brow, and said no more, and remained troubled.
In Canto IV of Purgatory he measures the mountain with a rule of weight, not distance, and stops at the limit of his own knowledge:
Ed elli a me: «Questa montagna è tale, / che sempre al cominciar di sotto è grave; / e quant’ om più va sù, e men fa male. / Però, quand’ ella ti parrà soave / tanto, che sù andar ti fia leggero / com’ a seconda giù andar per nave, and he to me: this mountain is such that it is always hard at the beginning, from below; and the more one climbs, the less it hurts. So, when it seems to you so gentle that climbing will be as light for you as going down the current in a boat.
In Canto V of Purgatory he rebukes the disciple who clings to the words of others, and in Canto VI of Purgatory he answers what Dante asks about prayer: his writing is clear, and the hope of the souls does not fail. When he reaches the limit of what his reason can reach, he names for the first time the woman who will come later:
Non so se ’ntendi: io dico di Beatrice; / tu la vedrai di sopra, in su la vetta / di questo monte, ridere e felice, I do not know whether you understand: I mean Beatrice; you will see her above, on the summit of this mountain, laughing and happy.
The embrace of Sordello, who rises at the name of Mantua, is that of a patrician. Canto VII of Purgatory is the canto in which Virgil says his own name, and the embrace becomes that of a disciple:
«O gloria di Latin», disse, «per cui / mostrò ciò che potea la lingua nostra, / o pregio etterno del loco ond’ io fui, O glory of the Latins, he said, through whom our language showed what it could do, O eternal honor of the place where I was born.
It is there also that he states the loss that defines him:
Non per far, ma per non fare ho perduto / a veder l’alto Sol che tu disiri / e che fu tardi per me conosciuto, not by doing, but by not doing, I have lost the sight of the high Sun that you desire and that was known to me too late.
He asks the Mantuan for a sign of the place where Purgatory truly begins, is told that no fixed place has been set, and sees the valley of the princes without being able to enter it: the darkness, says Sordello, entangles the will with the lack of power. In Canto VIII of Purgatory, at nightfall, it is he who explains the sky to Dante, the four stars of the morning and the three that have risen now, and it is on his back that the disciple presses himself when Sordello announces the serpent. In Canto IX of Purgatory he tells what sleep hid: Lucia carried Dante asleep, and he followed her steps.
venne una donna, e disse: “I’ son Lucia; / lasciatemi pigliar costui che dorme; / sì l’agevolerò per la sua via”., a woman came and said: "I am Lucia; let me take this one who sleeps; thus I will ease his way."
In the cantos of pride Virgil is the practical guide. In Canto X of Purgatory he orders a little art used to follow the moving cleft; in Canto XI of Purgatory he asks the souls for the shorter stairway and explains that his companion, still of flesh, is slow to climb, against his own will; in Canto XII of Purgatory he interrupts Dante's solidarity with Oderisi with a phrase from navigation, and then orders him to look at the floor as a remedy.
Di pari, come buoi che vanno a giogo, / m’andava io con quell’ anima carca, / fin che ’l sofferse il dolce pedagogo. / Ma quando disse: «Lascia lui e varca; / ché qui è buono con l’ali e coi remi, / quantunque può, ciascun pinger sua barca»;, side by side, like oxen that go to the yoke, I walked with that burdened soul, as long as the sweet pedagogue allowed it. But when he said: "Leave him and pass on; for here it is good, with wings and with oars, as far as one can, for each to push his own boat."
On the ledge of envy it is he who prays to the sun, because he has no other guide in sight, with a caution that makes him modest:
«O dolce lume a cui fidanza i’ entro / per lo novo cammin, tu ne conduci», / dicea, «come condur si vuol quinc’ entro. / Tu scaldi il mondo, tu sovr’ esso luci; / s’altra ragione in contrario non ponta, / esser dien sempre li tuoi raggi duci»., O sweet light, in whom I trust as I enter this new path, lead us, he said, as one must be led from within here. You warm the world, you shine upon it; if no other reason points the other way, your rays must always be our guides.
He explains the voices, which are the scourge made of love, and in Canto XIV of Purgatory he interprets the two voices of the bridle with the image of the heaven that turns and the eye that looks only at the earth:
Chiamavi ’l cielo e ’ntorno vi si gira, / mostrandovi le sue bellezze etterne, / e l’occhio vostro pur a terra mira; / onde vi batte chi tutto discerne»., heaven calls you and turns around you, showing you its eternal beauties, and your eye looks only at the earth; therefore he who discerns all strikes you.
In Canto XV of Purgatory he answers the question about goods that company does not diminish with two images of light and mirror, and acknowledges his limit:
E quanta gente più là sù s’intende, / più v’è da bene amare, e più vi s’ama, / e come specchio l’uno a l’altro rende. / E se la mia ragion non ti disfama, / vedrai Beatrice, ed ella pienamente / ti torrà questa e ciascun’ altra brama., and the more people are understood up there, the more there is to love well, and the more one loves, and, like a mirror, one returns to the other. And if my reason does not sate you, you will see Beatrice, and she will fully remove this and every other hunger from you.
In Canto XVI of Purgatory he offers his shoulder to Dante, blinded by smoke. The center of the poem, Canto XVII of Purgatory, is his: the lesson of love, in which natural love never errs and the love of the mind errs through a bad object, or through too much or too little vigor. He gives it as one who demonstrates by exclusion, and begins with a principle that places creator and creature in the same statement:
Né creator né creatura mai», / cominciò el, «figliuol, fu sanza amore, / o naturale o d’animo; e tu ’l sai, neither creator nor creature, son, was ever without love, natural or of the mind; and you know it.
Lo naturale è sempre sanza errore, / ma l’altro puote errar per malo obietto / o per troppo o per poco di vigore, the natural is always without error, but the other can err through a bad object, or through too much or too little vigor.
In Canto XVIII of Purgatory he completes the lesson with the image of the wax and the seal, and answers Dante's objection with the power to hold back love, which Beatrice will call the noble virtue, free will. It is in this canto that he draws the limit with the phrase most often remembered:
Quanto ragion qui vede, / dir ti poss’ io; da indi in là t’aspetta / pur a Beatrice, ch’è opra di fede, as far as reason sees here, I can tell you; from there on, wait only for Beatrice, for it is a work of faith.
In Canto XIX of Purgatory he shows Dante how to escape the siren of the dream. He tears her garments, shows her belly and wakes the disciple by the stench, and then orders him to beat his heels on the ground and look at the lure that the eternal King turns. In Canto XXI of Purgatory he answers Statius's greeting with a wish, that the true court place him in peace among the blessed, he who relegates him to eternal exile. When Statius bends to embrace his feet, he refuses with a reason:
Frate, / non far, ché tu se’ ombra e ombra vedi». / Ed ei surgendo: «Or puoi la quantitate / comprender de l’amor ch’a te mi scalda, / quand’ io dismento nostra vanitate, / trattando l’ombre come cosa salda, brother, do not, for you are a shade and you see a shade. And he, rising: now you can grasp the measure of the love that warms me toward you, when I forget our vanity, treating shades as solid things.
He hears from Statius what he knows about the poem itself:
de l’Eneïda dico, la qual mamma / fummi, e fummi nutrice, poetando: / sanz’ essa non fermai peso di dramma. / E per esser vivuto di là quando / visse Virgilio, assentirei un sole / più che non deggio al mio uscir di bando, I speak of the Aeneid, which was mother to me and nurse to me in my poetry: without it I would not have fixed a weight of a dram. And for having lived there when Virgil lived, I would accept one more sun than I owe for my leaving of exile.
Canto XXII of Purgatory is the canto in which Virgil receives from the other side the measure of what he did. He begins with the praise of the flame that kindles another flame, and Statius returns the harshest image of all, that of the man who carries the light behind and gains nothing from it:
Amore, / acceso di virtù, sempre altro accese, / pur che la fiamma sua paresse fore, love, kindled by virtue, always kindled another, provided its flame appeared outside.
Facesti come quei che va di notte, / che porta il lume dietro e sé non giova, / ma dopo sé fa le persone dotte, / quando dicesti: ‘Secol si rinova; / torna giustizia e primo tempo umano, / e progenïe scende da ciel nova, you did as one who goes at night, who carries the light behind and does not benefit himself, but makes people learned after him, when you said: "The age is renewed; justice returns and the first human time, and a new progeny descends from heaven."
Virgil's answer when Statius asks where the Latin poets are is without complaint, and he describes Limbo as a conversation:
Costoro e Persio e io e altri assai», / rispuose il duca mio, «siam con quel Greco / che le Muse lattar più ch’altri mai, / nel primo cinghio del carcere cieco; / spesse fïate ragioniam del monte / che sempre ha le nutrice nostre seco, these, and Persius, and I, and many others, my guide answered, are with that Greek whom the Muses nursed more than any other, in the first ring of the blind prison; often we speak of the mountain that always has our nurses with it.
In Canto XXIII of Purgatory Dante names him to Forese and says that he will accompany him as far as where Beatrice is, and that from there Virgil remains outside:
Tanto dice di farmi sua compagna / che io sarò là dove fia Beatrice; / quivi convien che sanza lui rimagna. / Virgilio è questi che così mi dice, he says so much about making me his companion that I will be there where Beatrice is; there it is fitting that I remain without him. This one who tells me so is Virgil.
In Canto XXV of Purgatory, asked by Dante about the thinness of the shades, he gives two images and hands the answer over to Statius, physician of the disciple's wounds.
Canto XXVII of Purgatory is his last and greatest scene. Before the wall of fire he uses three arguments of reason: the flame is torment and not death, Geryon has already been crossed, the hem of the cloak does not burn, and none of them moves the disciple. He changes his tone, somewhat disturbed, and uses the only one left to him:
Or vedi, figlio: / tra Bëatrice e te è questo muro, now see, son: between Beatrice and you stands this wall.
He enters the fire first, asks Statius to come behind, speaks of Beatrice as he goes to comfort the disciple, and promises for the next day the sweet fruit that the care of mortals seeks. In his last speech, at the top of the stairs, he gives up the office:
Tratto t’ho qui con ingegno e con arte; / lo tuo piacere omai prendi per duce; / fuor se’ de l’erte vie, fuor se’ de l’arte, I have brought you here with wit and with art; now take your pleasure for your guide; you are out of the steep paths, you are out of the narrows.
Non aspettar mio dir più né mio cenno; / libero, dritto e sano è tuo arbitrio, / e fallo fora non fare a suo senno: / per ch’io te sovra te corono e mitrio, do not wait for my word or my sign any longer; free, upright and whole is your choice, and it would be a mistake not to act according to its own judgment; therefore I crown and mitre you over yourself.
After that he speaks no more. In Canto XXVIII of Purgatory he laughs with Statius when Matelda says that the ancient poets perhaps dreamed of this place; in Canto XXIX of Purgatory he looks at the lights of the procession with an astonishment equal to Dante's. In Canto XXX of Purgatory Dante, who had turned to him as a child to his mother to say that he recognizes the old flame, finds the place empty:
Ma Virgilio n’avea lasciati scemi / di sé, Virgilio dolcissimo patre, / Virgilio a cui per mia salute die’mi, but Virgil had left us bereft of himself, Virgil my sweetest father, Virgil to whom I gave myself for my salvation.
Themes Embodied
Virgil embodies the reach of reason, and Purgatory makes its limit a theme. The theme of Redemption passes through him in reverse: guide of those who climb, he does not climb himself, and he says so without complaint, for what he did not do and not for what he did. Destiny and free will is the doctrine that Canto XVII and Canto XVIII develop through his mouth, and that he hands over to Beatrice at the point where reason ends. Art is the field in which the debt of Statius and of Dante places him in the middle of two poems: he is the poet who kindles the flame and the guide who does not see the light that passes to others.
In no canto does the poem belittle him. He errs on the way, grows impatient, is disturbed, and yet his word is the most trustworthy on the mountain, because it tells the truth as far as reason sees and says where that ends. What the canticle does with him is an almost anticipated mourning, which Dante tells Forese about before it happens and weeps over when it happens.
Divergent Readings
Two readings of what Virgil feels when he falls silent, in Canto III: he speaks only of the masters he knew in Limbo, or he speaks also of himself, and the lowering of his brow supports the second. Two readings of the image of Statius, in Canto XXII: homage to the one who made him a poet and a Christian, or the unembittered observation that the guide was left outside the light that passed to others. The poem offers both, and the text does not choose.
Relationships
- Dante: the disciple he leads to the top of the stairs, to whom he says he is free, upright and whole, and from whom he takes leave without saying goodbye.
- Statius: the poet who owes him faith and poetry, and who speaks for him when the explanation goes beyond what reason reaches.
- Beatrice: the woman who sent him to Dante's rescue, and whom he names on reaching the limit of what he knows.
- Sordello: the patrician of Mantua, who rises at the name of the land and bows at the name of the poet.
- Cato: the guardian who does not yield to tenderness but yields to the authority of the lady of heaven.
- Virgil: the same guide in the first canticle, where he knew the way.