The Book of the Epic: The World's Great Epics Told in Story

by H. A. Guerber

As all three warily proceed, Dante hears voices in the fiery furnace alternately imploring the mercy of God and quoting examples of chastity, such as Mary and Diana, and couples who proved chaste though married.

Canto XXVI. As the poets move along the rim, Dante's shadow, cast upon the roaring flames, causes such wonder to the victims undergoing purification that one of them inquires who he may be. Just as Dante is about to answer, his attention is attracted by hosts of shadows, who, after exchanging hasty kisses, dash on, mentioning such famous examples of dissoluteness as Pasiphae, and the men who caused the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Turning to his interlocutor, Dante then explains how he came hither and expresses a hope he may soon be received in bliss. The grateful spirit then gives his name, admits he sang too freely of carnal love, and adds that Dante would surely recognize many of his fellow-sufferers were he to point them out. Then, bespeaking Dante's prayers, he plunges back into the fiery element which is to make him fit for Paradise.

Canto XXVII. Just as the sun is about to set, an angel approaches them, chanting "Blessed are the pure in heart," and bids them fearlessly pass through the wall of fire which alone stands between them and Paradise. Seeing Dante hang back timorously, Virgil reminds him he will find Beatrice on the other side, whereupon our poet plunges recklessly into the glowing furnace, where both his companions precede him, and whence all three issue on an upward path. There they make their couch on separate steps, and Dante gazes up at the stars until he falls asleep and dreams of a lovely lady, culling flowers in a meadow, singing she is Lea (the mediaeval type of active life), and stating that her sister Rachel (the emblem of contemplative life) spends the day gazing at herself in a mirror.

At dawn the pilgrims awake, and Virgil assures Dante before this day ends his hunger for a sight of Beatrice will be appeased. This prospect so lightens Dante's heart that he almost soars to the top of the stairway. There Virgil, who has led him through temporal and eternal fires, bids him follow his pleasure, until he meets the fair lady who bade him undertake this journey.

"Till those bright eyes
With gladness come, which, weeping, made me haste
To succor thee, thou mayst or seat thee down
Or wander where thou wilt. Expect no more
Sanction of warning voice or sign from me,
Free of thine own arbitrament to choose.
Discreet, judicious. To distrust thy sense
Were henceforth error. I invest thee then
With crown and mitre, sovereign o'er thyself."

Canto XXVIII. Through the Garden of Eden Dante now strolls with Statius and Virgil, until he beholds, on the other side of a pellucid stream (whose waters have the "power to take away remembrance of offence"), a beautiful lady (the countess Matilda), who smiles upon him. Then she informs Dante she has come to "answer every doubt" he cherishes, and, as they wander along on opposite sides of the stream, she expounds for his benefit the creation of man, the fall and its consequences, and informs him how all the plants that grow on earth originate here. The water at his feet issues from an unquenchable fountain, and divides into two streams, the first of which, Lethe, "chases from the mind the memory of sin," while the waters of the second, Eunoe, have the power to recall "good deeds to one's mind."

Canto XXIX. Suddenly the lady bids Dante pause, look, and hearken. Then he sees a great light on the opposite shore, hears a wonderful music, and soon beholds a procession of spirits, so bright that they leave behind them a trail of rainbow-colored light. First among them march the four and twenty elders of the Book of Revelations; they are followed by four beasts (the Evangelists), and a gryphon, drawing a chariot (the Christian Church or Papal chair), far grander than any that ever graced imperial triumph at Rome. Personifications of the three evangelical virtues (Charity, Faith, and Hope) and of the four moral virtues (Prudence, etc.), together with St. Luke and St. Paul, the four great Doctors of the Church, and the apostle St. John, serve as body-guard for this chariot, which comes to a stop opposite Dante with a noise like thunder.

Canto XXX. The wonderful light, our poet now perceives, emanates from a seven-branched candlestick, and illuminates all the heavens like an aurora borealis. Then, amid the chanting, and while angels shower flowers down upon her, he beholds in the chariot a lady veiled in white, in whom, although transfigured, he instinctively recognizes Beatrice (a personification of Heavenly Wisdom). In his surprise Dante impulsively turns toward Virgil, only to discover that he has vanished!

Beatrice comforts him, however, by promising to be his guide hereafter, and gently reproaches him for the past until he casts shamefaced glances at his feet. There, in the stream (which serves as nature's mirror), he catches a reflection of his utter loathsomeness, and becomes so penitent, that Beatrice explains she purposely brought him hither by the awful road he has travelled to induce him to lead a changed life hereafter.

Canto XXXI. Beatrice then accuses him of yielding to the world's deceitful pleasures after she left him, and explains how he should, on the contrary, have striven to be virtuous so as to rejoin her. When she finally forgives him and bids him gaze into her face once more, he sees she surpasses her former self in loveliness as greatly as on earth she outshone all other women. Dante is so overcome by a sense of his utter unworthiness that he falls down unconscious, and on recovering his senses finds himself in the stream, upheld by the hand of a nymph (Matilda), who sweeps him along, "swift as a shuttle bounding o'er the wave," while angels chant "Thou shalt wash me" and "I shall be whiter than snow."