Purgatory, Canto 30

The Sayers Text of Purgatory Canto 30 (Open PDF)

A Prose translation of Canto 30 (by David Bruce)

Summary

Acclaimed by the voices and the strewn flowers of the Angels, Beatrice appears on the car. Dante, overcome by the power of his lifelong love, turns to Virgil for reassurance; but Virgil is no longer with him. Beatrice reproaches Dante.

The Prepatory Lecture

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Questions for Reflection

• When Beatrice appears, all chant Benedictus qui venis (“Blessed is he who comes…”) But the Latin takes the masculine rather than feminine ending. Why do you think Dante does this? What is he trying to say about Beatrice’s true identity?
• Dante is so overwhelmed with the power and authority of Beatrice that he turns to the left to turn to Virgil. What does he try to say to Virgil and what is Dante quoting in this statement (30.46-48)? What is the significance of this quotation?
• Why might Virgil disappear unexpectedly? Where do you think Virgil went and why?
• Does the first meeting with Beatrice go the way you’ve expected? Why or not why?
• Note that line 55 is the only time that Dante names himself in the entire poem. Why do so at this moment?
• What was Dante’s great sin (30.121-145)? Is this surprising to you?

Purgatory, Canto 30 © Jan Hearn

The Images

The Figure of Beatrice: If, throughout the whole course of the poem, our minds had not been insistently prepared for the coming of Beatrice, the whole symbolism of the Masque, and particularly the chanting of the Benedictus, would lead us to expect the appearance upon the car of the Holy Host Itself. And both expectations are quite right. What appears is indeed Beatrice, as we had been led to suppose: the unmistakable Beatrice whom Dante had loved in Florence. But she is also, in the allegory of the Masque, me Image of the Host In this august and moving moment, Dante brings together all the “significations” of Beatrice, showing her as the particular type and figure of that whole sacramental principle of which the Host Itself is the greater Image. Bearing in mind the four levels (see Inf. Introduction, p-15) at which Dante meant his poem to be interpreted, we see that she is here:

1. literally: the Florentine woman whom Dante loved.
2. morally (Le. as regards the way of salvation of the individual soul): the type of whatever is, for each of us, the “God-bearing image” which manifests the glory of God in His creation, and becomes a personal sacramental experience.
3. historically (i.e. in the world of human society): the Sacrament of the Altar. (And those who say that Beatrice here represents the Church are not wrong: for Dante has in mind that ancient and apostolic conception of the Eucharist which looks upon it, not only as the commemoration of God’s single act in time, but as the perpetual presentation to God in Christ of Christ’s true Body the Church — the verum corpus — which is made in the offertory of the bread and wine; so that, as St Augustine says, “being joined to His Body and made His members, we may be what we receive”.)
4. mystically (i.e. as regards the way of the soul’s union with God): the whole principle of Affirmation, whereby that union is effected in and through all the images.

Having said thus much, we may admire the poetic tact with which Dante leaves the whole weight of this allegorical structure to be carried on the framework of the Masque, so that he is free to conduct the interview between Dante and Beatrice throughout in those human and personal terms which make the story dramatically effective.

Mark Vernon's Lecture