"The hill
That highest tow'rds the heaven uplifts itself";
and in Paradiso, XXVI. 139, as
"The mount that rises highest o'er the wave."
Around it run seven terraces, on which are punished severally the Seven Deadly Sins. Rough stairways, cut in the rock, lead up from terrace to terrace, and on the summit is the garden of the Terrestrial Paradise. The Seven Sins punished in the Seven Circles are,- I. Pride; 2. Envy; 3.Anger; 4. Sloth ; 5. Avarice and Prodigality ; 6. Gluttony ; 7. Lust. The threefold division of the Purgatorio, marked only by more elaborate preludes, or by a natural pause in the action of the poem, is,-- I. From Canto I. to Canto IX. ; 2. From Canto IX. to Canto XXVIII. ; 3, From Canto XXVIII. to the end. The first of these divisions describes the region lying outside the gate of Purgatory ; the second, the Seven Circles of the mountain ; and the third, the Terrestrial Paradise on its summit. "Traces of belief in a Purgatory," says Mr. Alger, Doctrine of a Future Life, p.410, early appear among the Christians. Many of the gravest Fathers of the first five centuries naturally conceived and taught,--as is indeed intrinsically reasonable, - that after death some souls will be punished for their sins until they are cleansed, and then will be released from pain. The Manicheans imagined that all souls, before returning to their native heaven, must be borne first to the moon, where with good waters they would be washed pure from outward filth, and then to the sun, where they would be purged by good fires from every inward stain. After these lunar and solar lustrations, they were fit for the eternal world of light. But the conception of Purgatory as it was held by the early Christians, whether orthodox Fathers or heretical sects, was merely the just and necessary result of applying to the subject of future punishment the two ethical ideas that punishment should partake of degrees proportioned to guilt, and that it should be restorative..... "Pope Gregory the Great, in the sixth century,--either borrowing some of the more objectionable features of the Purgatory-doctrine previously held by the heathen, or else devising the same things himself from a perception of the striking adaptedness of such notions to secure an enviable power to the Church, --constructed, established, and gave working efficiency to the dogmatic scheme of Purgatory ever since firmly defended by the Papal adherents as an integral part of the Roman Catholic system. The doctrine as matured and promulgated by Gregory, giving to the representatives of the Church an almost unlimited power over Purgatory, rapidly grew into favour with the clergy, and sank with general conviction into the hopes and fears of the laity."
'Bene'ath their nails
Feathers they feel, and on their faces scales;
Their horny heaks at once each other scare,
Their arms are plumed, and on their backs they bear
Pied wings, and flutter in the fleeting air.
Chatt'ring, the scandal of the woods, they fly,
And there continue still their clam'rous cry :
The same their eloquence, as maids or birds,
Now only noise, and nothing then but words."
"The besy larke, the messager of day,
Saleweth in hire song the morwe gray,
And firy Phebus riseth up so bright,
That all the orient laugheth of the sight."
"We here are Nymphs, and in the Heaven are stars."
The next line may be interpreted in the same figurative sense.
Humboldt, Personal Narrative, > II.21, Miss William's Tr., thus describes his first glimpse of the Southern Cross.
"The pleasure we felt on discovering the Southern Cross was warmly shared by such of the crew as had lived in the colonies. In the solitude of the seas, we hail a star as a friend from whom we have long been separated. Among the Portuguese and Spaniards peculiar motives seem to increase this feeling ; a religious sentiment attaches them to a constellation, the form of which recalls the sign of the faith planted by their ancestors in the deserts of the New World.
"The two great stars which mark the summit and the foot of the Cross having nearly the same right ascension, it follows hence, that the constellation is almost perpendicular at the moment when it passes the meridian. This circumstance is known to every nation that lives beyond the tropics, or in the Southern hemisphere. It has been observed at what hour of the night, in different seasons, the Cross of the South is erect or inclined. It is a timepiece that advances very regularly near four minutes a day, and no other group of stars exhibits, to the naked eye, an observation of time so easily made. How often have we heard our guides exclaim in the savannahs of Venezuela, or in the desert extending from Lima to Truxillo, 'Midnight is past, the Cross begins to bend!' How often those words reminded us of that affecting scene, where Paul and Virginia, seated near the source of the river of Lataniers, conversed together for the last time, and where the old man, at the sight of the Southern Cross, warns them that it is time to separate."
"In consequence of the precession of the equinoxes, the starry heavens are continually changing their aspect from every portion of the earth's surface. The early races of mankind beheld in the far north the glorious constellations of the southern hemisphere rise before them, which, after remaining long invisible, will again appear in those latitudes after a lapse of thousands of years.... The Southern Cross began to become invisible in 52 degrees 30' north latitude 2900 years before our era, since, according to Galle, this constellation might previously have reached an altitude of more than 10 degrees. When it disappeared from the horizon of the countries of the Baltic, the great Pyramid of Cheops had already been erected more than 500 years."
In the description of the shield of Aeneas, Aeneid, VIII.1 Cato is represented as presiding over the good in the Tartarean realms : "And the good apart, Cato dispensing laws to them." This line of Virgil may have suggested to Dante the idea of making Cato the warden of Purgatory.
In the Convito, IV. 28, he expresses the greatest reverence for him. Marcia returning to him in her widowhood, he says, "symbolizes the noble soul returning to God in old age." And continues : "What man on earth was more worthy to symbolize God, than Cato? Surely none ";--ending the chapter with these words : "In his name it is beautiful to close what I have had to say of the signs of nobility, because in him this nobility displays them all through all ages."
Here, on the shores of Purgatory, his countenance is adorned with the light of the four stars, which are the four virtues, Justice, Prudence, Fortitude, and Temperance, and it is foretold of him, that his garments will shine brightly on the last day. And here he is the symbol of Liberty, since, for her sake, to him "not bitter was death in Utica"; and the meaning of Purgatory is spiritual Liberty, or freedom from sin through purification, "the glorious liberty of the childreu of God." Therefore in thus selecting the "Divine Cato" for the guardian of this realm, Dante shows himself to have greater freedom then the critics, who accuse him of "a perverse theology in saving the soul of an idolater and suicide."
"Now the down
Of softness is exchanged for plumes of age."
Dante uses the same expression, Inf XX. 45, and Petrarca, who became gray at an early period, says :
"In such a tenebrous and narrow cage
Were we shut up, and the accustomed plumes
I changed betimes, and my first countenance."
"Virgil's speech to the venerable Cato is a perfect specimen of persuasive eloquence. The sense of personal dignity is here combined with extreme courtesy and respect, and the most flattering appeals to the old man's well-known sentiments, his love of liberty, his love of rectitude, and his devoted attachment to Marcia, are interwoven with irresistible art ; but though the resentment of Cato at the approach of the strangers is thus appeased, and he is persuaded to regard them with as much favour as the severity of his character permits, yet he will not have them think that his consent to their proceeding has been obtained by adulation, but simply by the assertion of power vouchsafed to them from on high,--
Ma se donna del Ciel ti muove e regge,
Come tu di', non C'è mestier lusinga :
Bastiti ben, che per lei mi richegge.
In this also the consistency of Cato's character is maintained ; he is sensible of the flattery, but disowns its influence."
Lucan, Phars., II., Rowe's Tr.:--
"When low the sounding doors are heard to turn,
Chaste Martia comes from dead Hortensius'
urn.
Forth from the monument the mournful dame
With beaten breasts and locks dishevelled came ;
Then with a pale, dejected, rueful look,
Thus pleasing to her former lord she spoke
'At length a barren wedlock let me prove,
Give me the name without the joys of love ;
No more to be abandoned let me come,
That Cato's wife may live upon my tomb.'"
'We once were sad,
In the sweet air, made gladsome by the sun.
Now in these murky settlings are we sad.'
Even the angel crossing the marsh to help them is annoyed by this bitter marsh smoke, fummo acerbo, and continually sweeps it with his hand from before his face."