Purgatorio

“Now may it please you to favor his coming: he / seeks freedom, which is so precious, as one knows / who rejects life for her sake” (1. 70-72, 19).

The pilgrim seeks liberty or freedom so he can be cleansed from his sins. Cato exemplifies this freedom, which is important for Dante. Dane needs humility, for without it, he cannot climb the mountain and reach God. (BF)

"The sweet color of eastern sapphire, gathering in / the cloudless aspect of the air, pure to the first / circle...The dawn was overcoming the morning hour, / which fled before it, so that from afar I recognized / the trembling of the waters" (1. 13-15, 115-117).

Purgatory represents a new dawn and a new beginning. Dante rejoices in the changing of the colors in the dawning sky. This is an indicator of the passage of time. (BF)

"Eager already to search within and about the / divine forest, thick and alive, which tempered the / new day to my eyes...Already my slow steps had transported me into / the ancient wood so far that I could not see back to / the place where I had entered" (3. 27. 1-3, 22- 24).

As Dante enters the Earthly Paradise, or garden of Eden, and it is the complete opposite of where he started in the dark wood at the beginning of Inferno. Dante once again gets lost in the woods, like before, yet the forest here is beautiful and bright, something he is not used to, but welcomes it. This is his last day of travel and is able to "move slowly" and rest as he takes in his new atmosphere. This is similar of God and his creations that he rested on the seventh day. Free from Virgil and Statius, Dante has a new sense of freedom and independence as he travels through the forest, "The pilgrim is now free to desire and therefore to move about as he pleases. The canto’s first word “Vago” (desirous) registers the pilgrim’s freedom to follow his desire “sanza più aspettar” (4), without awaiting anyone’s permission" (Barolini). (BF)

"Venite, benedicti Patris mei!" sounded within a / light that was there, so bright that it vanquished / me and I could not look at it" (27. 58-60, 459)

This relates to Matthew 25:34 which says, "“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world." According to Kleinhenz, "he incorporates these exact words in Purgatory 27:58, where the angel addresses them to Dante the Pilgrim, Virgil, and Statius after their passage through the wall of fire on the seventh terrace and prior to their admittance to the earthly paradise at the top of the mountain...The use of the verse from Matthew at this crucial juncture — after purification and before entry to Eden — recalls to the reader the final advent and office of Christ, thus setting the stage for the analogous advent of Beatrice and focusing attention on her pronouncement of judgment on Dante the Pilgrim" (348). There is a purification that has undergone making the pilgrim unable to look at the brightness that the angel is portraying. (BF)

"Therefore, for the good of the world that / lives ill, keep your eyes now on the chariot, and / what you see, returning back there, be sure that/ you write" (32. 103-106).

Christopher Kleinhenz writes in his article "Biblical Citation in Dante's Divine Comedy" about the "poetics of allusion or reference" in which Dante's "desire for his text to be a proclamation of his personal, yet universal vision, an announcement which will serve to correct the "evil ways of the world," the "mondo che mal vive" (Purg. 32:103), a message which derives its moral and spiritual force precisely because it is rooted in and a authority of Holy Scripture, such that the Comedy itself scripture" (346-347). In other words, Dante uses the Bible to interpret his own text or meanings to find a deeper discovery of the way of life or the world. According to Durling, these lines echoes John in his writing of his Apocalypse: "What thou seest, write in a book" (Apoc. 1.11)" (562-563). (BF)