Dantes Ascension Purgatorio by Dante is the second installment in the Divine Comedy.

Purgatorio picks up where the first book, Inferno, left off. The Divine Comedy starts with Dante wanting to ascend to a divine light atop a mountain. He is stopped by three ravenous beasts, and saved by the spirit of his role model, Virgil, a famous roman poet. Virgil tells Dante that in order to ascend to heaven, he must first journey through the bowels of the earth, and face Lucifer himself. Dante witnesses the endless horrors of hell and comes out unscathed. After experiencing hell and hearing the screams of the tormented, Dantes soul is torn and corrupt with what he witnessed in the inferno. After all, thats what a life of sin could lead to, endless torment. However, in purgatory, there is hope, forgiveness, love, and the passage of time. The reason Dante comes to Purgatory is to learn of repentance, faith, and to cleanse himself of sin. At the end of Purgatorio, Dante has a spiritual reassessment because he is taught how to be pure of soul, that there is love in God, and that people can always change.

As Dante ascends through the seven levels of Purgatory, he learns of sin and how to repent for it. Before Dante enters purgatory, an angel marks out seven Ps on his forehead. The Italian word for sin is peccato. These seven Ps are representative of each of the seven capital sins, for which each of them has a corresponding level. The angel specifically tells him, Take heed that thou wash these wounds,/ when thou shalt be within, (Purg. Canto X 113-114). The angel is not speaking of the actual physical wounds, but rather the sin which the P represents. As the Ps disappear from Dantes forehead, it is clear that he is not only is his body healed, but his soul is healed as well. One could also say that Dantes mind is healed as well. In Canto thirtythree, Beatrice, Dantes muse and love interest, tells him about the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Dante does not understand her words. When he asks why, Beatrice replies, the

school/ Which thou hast followed, and mayst see how far/ Its doctrine follows after my discourse, /And mayst behold your path from the divine/ Distant as far as separated is/ From earth the heaven that highest hastens on, (Purg. Canto 33, 85-90). The reason Dante cant understand her words is because the knowledge known to God is so distant from the knowledge of man that it is incomprehensible. It is in this moment that Dante, a man of logic and reason, surrenders to the fact that not everything can be understood. He accepts that man can only reason so far, and must surrender to faith in order to accept what he cannot explain. The method by which Purgatory teaches repentance is best described as tough love. The sinners of purgatory are punished just as brutally as those in the inferno, but there is one difference. The sinners in purgatory have hope. At the entrance of the inferno, Dante notices a plaque that says lasciate ogni speranze, tutti chentrate. The sign literally translates to abandon each hope, all who enter here. The fact that there is no such thing at the beach of Purgatory tells the reader that Purgatory has hope. This is best shown in the fact that there is both day and night in purgatory. There is passage of time here. There is change in purgatory. Virgil, Dantes guide through hell and purgatory, asks of the repentant spirits, Tell us upon what side the mountain slopes,/ so that the going up be possible,/for to lose time irks him most who most knows, (Purg. Canto III, 75-78). He asks this because Virgil understands the importance and significance of time, so it stands to reason that he wants to waste none of it, and begin his journey with Dante as soon as possible. In the very beginning of Dantes journey, before even Inferno, Dante is lost in una selva oscura, an obscure forest, and had lost the path of life. In purgatory, he learns that this is because he lost his love for God. In loving his creations, God chose to give man free will. In doing this, he divided mans desires into natural love, which is love for God and the ultimate good, and

spiritual love, which can desire whatever it is attracted to. Virgil tells Dante that, love must be/
The seed within yourselves of every virtue,/ And every act that merits punishment, (Purg. Canto 17, 103-105). Therefore the test that is inherent for all humans is to train and teach their spiritual love

how to only be directed toward things that deserve admiration. All sin in purgatory is described as perverted love. The divisions of defective love are: Love perverted (pride, envy, wrath), Love Defective (Sloth), and Love Excessive (Avarice, Gluttonous, Lascivious). The purpose of the institution of purgatory isnt to punish, but to teach. To teach how to love properly, and how to direct that love toward God. As Dante ascends through purgatory, the Ps on his forehead are removed, meaning he is learning how to love and have faith in God. Dante reaches the terrestrial paradise, the Garden of Eden, and is bathed in the river Lethe. The counterpart to the river Lethe is the river Eunoe. Both sprout from one spring, but have two different purposes. The Lethe washes away every bad memory, every wrongdoing, from your mind, leaving you with only good in your soul. Once one has been washed in the Lethe, they move on to the Eunoe. The Eunoe restores to memory every good thing that has happened in your life, and every kindness you have ever performed. This is the moment of Dantes spiritual reassessment, when Dante literally cant remember his wrongdoings. However, Dante had already experienced his spiritual rebirth before bathing in either of the rivers. In order to reach the Garden of Eden, one must be free of sin, otherwise they are not permitted to enter. The fact that the angel guardian of the Garden let him enter is proof that Dante cleansed himself of sin, and that he must have changed, prior to having his memory altered. From either viewpoint however, it is clear that Dante has become a better person, and that he has experienced his own happy ending.

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