The Theme in the Work
Love is the key with which Purgatory is read, and the poem hands it over at the exact middle of the Comedy. In Canto XVII, Virgil answers the question about which offense is purged on a ledge with the definition of a love, and not with the name of a sin. The premise is universal: neither creator nor creature was ever without love.
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.
There are two kinds, and only one errs, and it errs in three ways.
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.
The consequence undoes the idea that vice is a separate species: the same love is the seed of every virtue and of every act that deserves punishment. The seven sins of the mountain are then reorganized as three loves of the evil of one's neighbor (pride, envy and wrath, on the three lower circlings), one slack love of the good (sloth, on the middle circling), and three excessive loves of lesser goods (avarice, gluttony and lust, on the three upper ones). In Canto XVIII Virgil completes the lesson with the definition of how love is born, the apprehension of the thing, and the inclination of the soul toward it:
e se, rivolto, inver’ di lei si piega, / quel piegare è amor, quell’ è natura / che per piacer di novo in voi si lega, and if, turned toward it, it bends in its direction, that bending is love, that is nature which binds itself in you through pleasure anew.
and with the image of the good wax and the seal that may not be good:
però che forse appar la sua matera / sempre esser buona, ma non ciascun segno / è buono, ancor che buona sia la cera, because perhaps its matter always appears to be good, but not every seal is good, even if the wax is good.
The theme has a prelude and an extension. The prelude is that of Canto XV, in which love appears as a good that grows when it is shared, and the image is of light and mirror:
Quello infinito e ineffabil bene / che là sù è, così corre ad amore / com’ a lucido corpo raggio vene. / Tanto si dà quanto trova d’ardore; / sì che, quantunque carità si stende, / cresce sovr’ essa l’etterno valore., that infinite and ineffable good which is up there runs to love as a ray comes to a luminous body. It gives itself as much as it finds of ardor; so that, however far charity extends, the eternal worth grows above it.
The extension is that of Canto XXII, in which love is what passes between the poets: love kindled by virtue always kindles another, provided its flame appears outside.
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.
At the other end, love is Dante's love for Beatrice. The power of the old love seizes him before his eyes recognize the woman, and this love, which Virgil's reason does not reach, is what the canticle reserves for its last cantos.
sanza de li occhi aver più conoscenza, / per occulta virtù che da lei mosse, / d’antico amor sentì la gran potenza, without his eyes having any further knowledge, through a hidden virtue that moved from her, he felt the great power of the old love.
Purgatory does not condemn love. It asks that it be set straight.
Who Embodies It
Virgil is love taught: the guide who explains, with reason, everything reason reaches. Statius is the love that kindles another. Dante is love turned toward present things with false pleasure. Beatrice is the love that judges, and her name is the only argument that moves Dante before the wall of fire, in Canto XXVII.
Where It Appears
- Canto II: Casella answers Dante that he loves him freed from the body as he loved him within it, and it is out of love that he stops, before asking why his friend is going.
- Canto XV: Virgil explains to Dante that divine good grows the more people love it, and that, if reason does not satisfy, Beatrice will remove all hunger.
- Canto XVII: Virgil teaches that every act is born of love, that natural love never errs, and that the love of the mind errs through a bad object, through too little or too much vigor.
- Canto XVIII: Virgil defines love as the inclination of the soul toward what apprehension shows it, and hands over to Beatrice what reason does not reach.
- Canto XIX: Dante dreams of the siren whom his desire makes beautiful, and Virgil orders him to look at the lure that the eternal King turns.
- Canto XX: Dante curses the she-wolf and her endless hunger, which is love misdirected toward lesser goods, and asks for the coming of someone who will make her leave.
- Canto XXII: Virgil tells Statius that love kindled by virtue kindled another love, and Statius answers that through him he became a poet and a Christian.
- Canto XXIV: Dante tells Bonagiunta that he writes only what Love dictates within, and that is how the school of the ancient poets is distinguished from the new style.
- Canto XXVII: Virgil makes Dante enter the fire by the name of Beatrice, and says that between him and her there is only the wall.
- Canto XXX: Dante feels the power of the old love before Beatrice's face is recognized, and turns to Virgil like a child to his mother.
- Canto XXXI: Beatrice accuses Dante of having followed present things with false pleasure after her death, and uses the body as proof of greater pleasure.
Where the Readings Diverge
Two readings of what Beatrice does with love. On the first, she judges it by the same criterion as Virgil: Dante's love was turned toward present things, and the remedy is repentance and washing. On the second, the love she demands is her own, the old one, and what Dante erred in was pulling himself away from her. Canto XXXI sustains both, and does not decide.