What It Is
The seven P's are the letters that the gatekeeper angel writes with the point of his sword on the forehead of Dante when he reaches the gate of the mountain, in Canto IX of Purgatory, one for each sin the mountain will wash away. Dante throws himself at the angel's feet, beats his breast three times and asks for mercy, and the angel tells him to wash them off once he is inside. Before that, the pilgrim climbed three steps of different colors: one of white marble so polished that he sees himself in it just as he appears, one darker than purple-black, of rough and cracked stone, and one of red porphyry like blood that spurts from a vein. Then the angel draws from under a gray-colored robe two keys, one of gold and one of silver, and opens the door with a rule: it is better to err in opening than in keeping shut, provided one prostrates oneself. The common reading takes the letter as the initial of pecado, sin, in Italian.
Where It Appears
The inscription and the rule of the gate are in Canto IX of Purgatory. The angel orders the inscription:
Before climbing the first ledge, Dante kneels before the gatekeeper angel, beats his breast three times and receives the seven P's marked on his forehead with the point of the sword; the angel draws out two keys, one of gold and the other of silver, one more precious and the other that requires art and skill before opening, because it is that one which unties the knot, and warns that whoever looks back after entering will go back outside.Sette P ne la fronte mi descrisse / col punton de la spada, e «Fa che lavi, / quando se’ dentro, queste piaghe» disse, He wrote seven P's on my forehead with the point of the sword, and said: Take care that you wash, once you are inside, these wounds.
The warning that closes the rule holds for whoever has already been admitted:
Da Pier le tegno; e dissemi ch’i’ erri / anzi ad aprir ch’a tenerla serrata, / pur che la gente a’ piedi mi s’atterri». / Poi pinse l’uscio a la porta sacrata, / dicendo: «Intrate; ma facciovi accorti / che di fuor torna chi ’n dietro si guata»., I hold them from Peter; and he told me that I should err in opening rather than in keeping it locked, provided the people at my feet prostrate themselves. Then he pushed the leaf of the sacred door, saying: Enter; but I warn you that whoever looks back goes out again.
The steps that precede the inscription are described thus:
Là ne venimmo; e lo scaglion primaio / bianco marmo era sì pulito e terso, / ch’io mi specchiai in esso qual io paio. / Era il secondo tinto più che perso, / d’una petrina ruvida e arsiccia, / crepata per lo lungo e per traverso., We came there; and the first step was white marble, so polished and clear that I saw myself in it as I appear. The second was darker than purple-black, of a rough and scorched stone, cracked lengthwise and crosswise.
The first P falls in Canto XII of Purgatory, at the end of the ledge of pride. Dante notices the erasure only when he passes his hand over his forehead and finds only six of the letters, and Virgil smiles, because he knew:
e con le dita de la destra scempie / trovai pur sei le lettere che ’ncise / quel da le chiavi a me sovra le tempie: / a che guardando, il mio duca sorrise., and with the open fingers of my right hand I found only six of the letters that he who holds the keys had carved upon my temples; seeing this, my guide smiled.
Virgil had already explained the law to him: when all the P's are shaved down as one already is, the feet will be overcome by good will, and it will give them pleasure to be impelled upward. In Canto XV of Purgatory the guide tells Dante to see that the five wounds that remain are soon erased, as two already have been, and that they close through pain. The angel of the sixth turn, in Canto XXII of Purgatory, scrapes off one more.
What It Means
The seven P's are the moral summary of the mountain in seven letters: each corresponds to one of the capital sins and is washed away on a ledge. What the symbol does is put sin on the body of the penitent, and not only in the soul.
The poem shows two opposite operations on the same forehead: the sword writes, the angel erases. The one that writes is severe, and Dante receives it on his knees. The one that erases is light, and Dante does not even see it. Two readings: the erasing is the payment for what is done at each ledge, or it is the sign that the will, and not the penalty, is what heals. The text supports both, and Canto XII gives the second a foundation, the hand that discovers what the sight did not see.
Relationships
- Default themes: Redemption, Pride.
- Themes of the work: Redemption, Pride.
- Characters: Dante, Virgil.
- Neighboring symbols: the mountain and the rush of humility, whose lightness grows with each P that goes, and the stones of pride, the ledge where the first is erased.