Purgatory, Canto 25

The Sayers Text of Purgatory Canto 25 (Open PDF)

A Prose translation of Canto 25 (by David Bruce)

Summary

AS the three Poets are climbing the Sixth Stair, Dante asks a question about the apparent bodies of the Shades. Statius, in a long Discourse, expounds the nature of the Rational Soul, and its connexion with the material body before, and the aery body after, death. They now alt emerge upon the Seventh Cornice, where the souls of the Lustful are purged by fire.

The Prepatory Lecture

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Questions for Reflection

• 59 canti into the Commedia, Dante finally addresses the problem of the body of the shades in the afterlife. What is it about being among the emaciated gluttons that spurs Dante to inquire along these lines (25.20-21)?
• Statius discourses about the creation of the soul and the body. Why do you think Dante needed to learn this information from 1) a poet (note the important role that language plays in Statius’ discourse); 2) a Christian (in other words, why couldn’t Dante have learned this from Virgil?)?
• What are the three “stages” of the soul that Statius outlines? At what stage does language come into play in the formation of the human person (61-63)?
• In 25.61-63, Dante rhymes the words fante/errante (human/error). “Fante” also means “one who speaks” or a “language user.” How is Dante tying language to the ability to be mistaken?
• Does God ever directly intervene in the formation of the human person? At what point (25.67-75)?
• The divine image in humanity consists of what three things (25.83)? What is the relationship between the soul and the body (25.88-102)? What does this tell you about the way Dante conceives the nature of the human person? Why is this important to know at this point in the moral journey of Purgatorio?

Purgatory, Canto 25 © Jan Hearn

The Images

The Penance of the Lustful: the Fire. By contrast with the common run of eschatological writers, Dante is strangely economical in his use of fire. Even in Hell, the naked flame makes only four appearances (in the Sixth Circle, Ring ii of the Seventh, and Bowges iii and viii of the Eighth), and is never unaccompanied by some touch of greatness amid the squalor: Farinata, Capaneus and the Three Noble Florentines, Ulysses, the outraged majesty of the Most High Keys. On the Blissful Mountain, the traditional “Purgatory Fire” is conspicuous by its absence: only on its last and highest and most triumphant Cornice does this great Scriptural image blaze out with a sudden splendid lucidity.

“For He is like a refiner’s fire”; “the fining-pot is for silver and the furnace for gold”; “the words of the Lord are pure words, even as the silver, which from the earth is tried, and purified seven times in the fire.” Fire, which is an image of Lust, is also an image of Purity. The burning of the sin, and the burning charity which is its opposing virtue, here coalesce into a single image and a single experience ; here, where the souls of great poets go singing and weeping through the flame, the noblest of earthly lovers is purged and set in order.

Mark Vernon's Lecture