Purgatory, Canto 17

The Sayers Text of Purgatory Canto 17 (Open PDF)

A Prose translation of Canto 17 (by David Bruce)

Summary

ON issuing from the Smoke-cloud, Dante sees in a vision examples of the sin of Wrath. The Angel of the Cornice meets the Poets, erases the third P from Dante’s forehead, and, having pronounced the Benediction, directs them to the next stairway. Night falls as they reach the top step, and, since the Law of the Mountain prevents them from ascending further, Virgil beguiles the time by explaining the arrangement of the Cornices and the nature of the sins purged on each of them.

The Prepatory Lecture

Click here if video doesn't appear.

Questions for Reflection

• This is a significant canto. It is, firstly, the middle canto of the Comedy. It is also the 51st canto of the poem, thus tying it back to the pilgrim’s first words in Inferno 1: “Miserere mei” (from Psalm 51 [50 in the Latin Vulgate]). In light of this, why do you think Dante chooses to begin this canto with an address to the reader?
• What role does the imagination play in the first 27 lines?
• What is sloth (17.85-87)?
• How does love work according to lines 91-105? How can virtue and vice both be the result of love? How can we think of sin in terms of love?
• How is Mount Purgatory divided into failures of love?

The Canticle in this Canto

Purgatory, Canto 17 © Jan Hearn

The Images

Middle Purgatory: Love Defective.  

Sloth, or Accidie:  Sloth or Accidie (Acedia) is the failure to love any good object in its proper measure, and, especially, to love God actively with all one has and is. 

Mark Vernon's Lecture