In the last Canto of Purgatory proper[223] we have another picture of a going to sleep and an awaking. The sleepiness has been induced by a sort of natural self-hypnotism, the poet’s gaze steadily fixed on a few bright stars seen through the confined opening between the cliffs as he lies on the rocky stair.
Poco potea parer li del di fori;
Ma, per quel poco, vedev’ io le stelle
Di lor solere e più chiare e maggiori
Sì ruminando e sì mirando in quelle,
Mi prese il sonno; il sonno che sovente,
Anzi che ’l fatto sia, sa le novelle.
This time the awakening is not sudden or violent.[224] After the altogether lovely dream of Lia—the sublimation of Dante’s desire, suggested, or coloured, by the natural anticipations of one on the threshold of the earthly Paradise—he wakes up quite naturally, his sleep “breaking from him” with the breaking dawn.[225]
Le tenebre fuggian da tutti lati
E il sonno mio con esse; ond’ io leva’ mi.