region of Purgatory was suggested by the position assigned to him
by Virgil in the Aeneid, viii. 670. "Secretosque pios, his dantem
jura Catonem."

It has been objected to Virgil's thus putting him in Elysium,
that as a suicide his place was in the Mourning Fields. A similar
objection may be made to Dante's separating him from the other
suicides in the seventh circle of Hell (Canto XIII.). "But," says
Conington, "Virgil did not aim at perfect consistency. It was
enough for him that Cato was one who from his character in life
might be justly conceived of as lawgiver to the dead." So Dante,
using Cato as an allegoric figure, regards him as one who, before
the coming of Christ, practised the virtues which are required to
liberate the soul from sin, and who, as be says in the De
Monarchia (ii. 5), "that he might kindle the love of liberty in
the world, showed how precious it was, by preferring death with
liberty to life without it." This liberty is the type of that
spiritual freedom which Dante is seeking, and which, being the
perfect conformity of the human will to the will of God, is the
aim and fruition of nil redeemed souls.

In the region of Purgatory outside the gate, the souls have not
yet attained this freedom; they are on the way to it, and Cato is
allegorically fit to warn and spur them on.

"Who are ye that counter to the blind stream have fled from the
eternal prison?" said he, moving those venerable plumes. "Who has
guided you? Or who was a lamp to you, issuing forth from the deep
night that ever makes the infernal valley black? Are the laws of
the abyss thus broken? or is a new design changed in heaven that,
being damned, ye come unto my rocks?"

My Leader then took hold of me, and with words, and with hands,
and with signs, made my legs and my brow reverent. Then he
answered him, "Of myself I came not; a Lady descended from
Heaven, through whose prayers I succored this man with my
company. But since it is thy will that more of our condition be
unfolded to thee as it truly is, mine cannot be that to thee this
be denied. This man has not seen his last evening, but through
his folly was so near thereto that very little time there was to
turn. Even as I have said, I was sent to him to rescue him, and
there was no other way than this, along which I have set myself.
I have shown to him all the guilty people; and now I intend to
show him those spirits that purge themselves under thy ward. How
I have led him, it would be long to tell thee; from on high
descends power that aids me to conduct him to see thee and to
hear thee. Now may it please thee to approve his coming. He goes
seeking liberty, which is so dear, as he knows who for her
refuses life. Thou knowest it, for death for her sake was not
hitter to thee in Utica, where thou didst leave the garment that
on the great day shall he so bright. The eternal edicts are not
violated by us, for this one is alive, and Minos does not bind
me; but I am of the circle where are the chaste eyes of thy
Marcia, who in her look still prays thee, O holy breast, that for
thine own thou hold her. For her love, then, incline thyself to
us; let us go on through thy seven realms.[1] Thanks unto thee
will I carry back to her, if to be mentioned there below thou
deign."

[1] The seven circles of Purgatory.

"Marcia so pleased my eyes while I was on earth," said he then,
"that whatsoever grace she wished from me I did it; now, that on
the other side of the evil stream she dwells, she can no more
move me, by that law which was made when thence I issued
forth.[1] But if a Lady of heaven move and direct thee, as thou
sayest, there is no need of flattery; suffice it fully to thee
that for her sake thou askest me. Go then, and see thou gird this
one with a smooth rush, and that thou wash his face so that thou
remove all sully from it, for it were not befitting to go with
eye overcast by any cloud before the first minister that is of
those of Paradise. This little island, round about at its base,
down there yonder where the wave heats it, bears rushes upon its
soft ooze. No plant of other kind, that might put forth leaf or
grow hard, can there have life, because it yields not to the
shocks. Thereafter let not your return be this way; the Sun which
now is rising will show you to take the mountain by easier
ascent."

[1] The law that the redeemed cannot be touched by other than
heavenly affections.

So he disappeared, and I rose up, without speaking, and drew me
close to my Leader, and turned my eyes to him. He began, "Son,
follow my steps; let us turn back, for this plain slopes that way
to its low limits."

The dawn was vanquishing the matin hour which fled before it, so
that from afar I discerned the trembling of the sea. We set forth
over the solitary plain like a man who turns unto the road which
he has lost, and, till he come to it, seems to himself to go in
vain. When we were where the dew contends with the sun, and,
through being in a place where there is shade, is little
dissipated, my Master softly placed both his hands outspread upon
the grass. Whereon I, who perceived his design, stretched toward
him my tear-stained cheeks. Here he wholly uncovered that color
of mine which hell had hidden on me.[1]

[1] Allegorically, when the soul has entered upon the way of
purification Reason, with the dew of repentance, washes off the
stain of sin, and girds the spirit with humility.

We came, then, to the desert shore that never saw navigate its
waters one who afterwards had experience of return. Here he girt
me, even as pleased the other. O marvel! that such as he plucked
the humble plant, it instantly sprang up again there whence he
tore it.[1]

[1] The goods of the spirit are not diminished by appropriation.

CANTO II. Sunrise.--The Poets on the shore.--Coming of a boat,
guided by an angel, bearing souls to Purgatory.--Their
landing.--Casella and his song.--Cato hurries the souls to the
mountain.

Now had the sun reached the horizon whose meridian circle covers
Jerusalem with its highest point; and the night which circles
opposite to it was issuing forth from Ganges with the Scales that
fall from her hand when she exceeds;[1] so that where I was the
white and red cheeks of the beautiful Aurora by too much age were
becoming orange.

[1] Purgatory and Jerusalem are antipodal, and in one direction
the Ganges or India was arbitrarily assumed to be their common
horizon. The night is here taken as the point of the Heavens
opposite the sun, and the sun being in Aries, the night is in
Libra. When night exceeds, that is, at the autumnal equinox, when
the night becomes longer than the day, the Scales may be said to
drop from her hand, since the sun enters Libra.

We were still alongside the sea, like folk who are thinking of
their road, who go in heart and linger in body; and lo! as, at
approach of the morning, through the dense vapors Mars glows
ruddy, down in the west above the ocean floor, such appeared to
me,--so may I again behold it!--a light along the sea coming so
swiftly that no flight equals its motion. From which when I had a
little withdrawn my eye to ask my Leader, again I saw it,
brighter become and larger. Then on each side of it appeared to
me a something, I know not what, white, and beneath, little by
little, another came forth from it. My Master still said not a
word, until the first white things showed themselves wings; then,
When he clearly recognized the pilot, he cried out, "Mind, mind,
thou bend thy knees. Lo! the Angel of God: fold thy hands;
henceforth shalt thou see such officials. See how he scorns human
means, so that he wills not oar, or other sail than his own wings
between such distant shores. See, how he holds them straight
toward heaven, stroking the air with his eternal feathers that
are not changed like mortal hair."

Then, as nearer and nearer toward us came the Bird Divine, the
brighter he appeared; so that near by my eye endured him not, but
I bent it down: and he came on to the shore with a small vessel,
very swift and light so that the water swallowed naught of it. At
the stern stood the Celestial Pilot, such that if but described
he would make blessed; and more than a hundred spirits sat
within. "In exitu Israel de Egypto"[1] they all were singing
together with one voice, with whatso of that psalm is after
written. Then he made the sign of holy cross upon them; whereon
they all threw themselves upon the strand; and he went away swift
as he had come.

1 "When Israel went out of Egypt." Psalm cxiv.

The crowd which remained there seemed strange to the place,
gazing round about like him who of new things makes essay. On all
sides the Sun, who had with his bright arrows chased from
midheaven the Capricorn,[1] was shooting forth the day, when the
new people raised their brow toward us, saying to us, "If ye
know, show us the way to go unto the mountain." And Virgil
answered, "Ye believe, perchance, that we are acquainted with
this place, but we are pilgrims even as ye are. Just now we came,
a little before you, by another way, which was so rough and
difficult that the ascent henceforth will seem play to us.

[1] When Aries, in which the Sun was rising, is on the horizon,
Capricorn is at the zenith.

The souls who had become aware concerning me by my breathing,
that I was still alive, marvelling became deadly pale. And as to
a messenger who bears an olive branch the folk press to hear
news, and no one shows himself shy of crowding, so, at the sight
of me, those fortunate souls stopped still, all of them, as if
forgetting to go to make themselves fair.

I saw one of them drawing forward to embrace me with so great
affection that it moved me to do the like. O shades empty save in
aspect! Three times behind it I clasped my hands and as oft
returned with them unto my breast. With marvel, I believe, I
painted me; wherefore the shade smiled and drew back, and I,
following it, pressed forward, Gently it said, that I should
pause; then I knew who it was, and I prayed it that to speak with
me it would stop a little. It replied to me, "So as I loved thee
in the mortal body, so loosed from it I love thee; therefore I
stop; but wherefore goest thou?"

"Casella mine, in order to return another time to this place
where I am, do I make this journey," said I, "but from thee how
has so much time been taken?"[1]

[1] "How has thy coming hither been delayed so long since thy