Purgatorio

Canto XXIX

The triumph of the Church.

Singing like unto an enamoured lady¹She, with the ending of her words, continued:“Beati quorum tecta sunt peccata.”²And even as Nymphs, that wandered all aloneAmong the sylvan shadows, sedulousOne to avoid and one to see the sun,She then against the stream moved onward, goingAlong the bank, and I abreast of her,Her little steps with little steps attending.Between her steps and mine were not a hundred,³When equally the margins gave a turn,In such a way, that to the East I faced.Nor even thus our way continued farBefore the lady wholly turned herselfUnto me, saying, “Brother, look and listen!”And lo! a sudden lustre ran acrossOn every side athwart the spacious forest,Such that it made me doubt if it were lightning.But since the lightning ceases as it comes,And that continuing brightened more and more,Within my thought I said, “What thing is this?”And a delicious melody there ranAlong the luminous air, whence holy zealMade me rebuke the hardihood of Eve;For there where earth and heaven obedient were,The woman only, and but just created,Could not endure to stay ’neath any veil;Underneath which had she devoutly stayed,I sooner should have tasted those delightsIneffable, and for a longer time.While ’mid such manifold first-fruits I walkedOf the eternal pleasure all enrapt,And still solicitous of more delights,In front of us like an enkindled fireBecame the air beneath the verdant boughs,And the sweet sound as singing now was heard.O Virgins sacrosanct! if ever hunger,Vigils, or cold for you I have endured,The occasion spurs me their reward to claim!Now Helicon must needs pour forth for me,And with her choir Urania must assist me,⁴To put in verse things difficult to think.A little farther on, seven trees of goldIn semblance the long space still interveningBetween ourselves and them did counterfeit;But when I had approached so near to themThe common object, which the sense deceives,⁵Lost not by distance any of its marks,The faculty that lends discourse to reason⁶Did apprehend that they were candlesticks,⁷And in the voices of the song “Hosanna!”Above them flamed the harness beautiful,Far brighter than the moon in the sereneOf midnight, at the middle of her month.I turned me round, with admiration filled,To good Virgilius, and he answered meWith visage no less full of wonderment.Then back I turned my face to those high things,Which moved themselves towards us so sedately,They had been distanced by new-wedded brides.The lady chid me: “Why dost thou burn onlySo with affection for the living lights,And dost not look at what comes after them?”Then saw I people, as behind their leaders,Coming behind them, garmented in white,And such a whiteness never was on earth.The water on my left flank was resplendent,And back to me reflected my left side,E’en as a mirror, if I looked therein.When I upon my margin had such postThat nothing but the stream divided us,Better to see I gave my steps repose;And I beheld the flamelets onward go,Leaving behind themselves the air depicted,And they of trailing pennons had the semblance,So that it overhead remained distinctWith sevenfold lists, all of them of the colorsWhence the sun’s bow is made, and Delia’s girdle.⁸These standards to the rearward longer wereThan was my sight; and, as it seemed to me,Ten paces were the outermost apart.Under so fair a heaven as I describeThe four and twenty Elders, two by two,⁹Came on incoronate with flower-de-luce.They all of them were singing: “Blessed thou¹⁰Among the daughters of Adam art, and blessedFor evermore shall be thy loveliness.”After the flowers and other tender grassesIn front of me upon the other marginWere disencumbered of that race elect,Even as in heaven star followeth after star,There came close after them four animals,¹¹Incoronate each one with verdant leaf.Plumed with six wings was every one of them,The plumage full of eyes; the eyes of ArgusIf they were living would be such as these.Reader! to trace their forms no more I wasteMy rhymes; for other spendings press me so,That I in this cannot be prodigal.But read Ezekiel, who depicteth them¹²As he beheld them from the region coldComing with cloud, with whirlwind, and with fire;And such as thou shalt find them in his pages,Such were they here; saving that in their plumageJohn is with me, and differeth from him.¹³The interval between these four containedA chariot triumphal on two wheels,¹⁴Which by a Griffin’s neck came drawn along;¹⁵And upward he extended both his wingsBetween the middle list and three and three,¹⁶So that he injured none by cleaving it.So high they rose that they were lost to sight;His limbs were gold, so far as he was bird,And white the others with vermilion mingled.Not only Rome with no such splendid carE’er gladdened Africanus, or Augustus,But poor to it that of the Sun would be—¹⁷That of the Sun, which swerving was burnt upAt the importunate orison of Earth,When Jove was so mysteriously just.¹⁸Three maidens at the right wheel in a circle¹⁹Came onward dancing; one so very redThat in the fire she hardly had been noted.The second was as if her flesh and bonesHad all been fashioned out of emerald;The third appeared as snow but newly fallen.And now they seemed conducted by the white,Now by the red, and from the song of herThe others took their step, or slow or swift.Upon the left hand four made holiday²⁰Vested in purple, following the measureOf one of them with three eyes in her head.In rear of all the group here treated of²¹Two old men I beheld, unlike in habit,But like in gait, each dignified and grave.One showed himself as one of the disciples²²Of that supreme Hippocrates, whom natureMade for the animals she holds most dear;Contrary care the other manifested,With sword so shining and so sharp, it caused²³Terror to me on this side of the river.Thereafter four I saw of humble aspect,²⁴And behind all an aged man alone²⁵Walking in sleep with countenance acute.And like the foremost company these sevenWere habited; yet of the flower-de-luceNo garland round about the head they wore,But of the rose, and other flowers vermilion;At little distance would the sight have swornThat all were in a flame above their brows.And when the car was opposite to meThunder was heard; and all that folk augustSeemed to have further progress interdicted,There with the vanward ensigns standing still.²⁶

The Terrestrial Paradise and the Apocalyptic Procession of the Church Triumphant. ↩
Psalm 32:1:— “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.” ↩
Counted together, their steps were not a hundred in all. ↩
The Muse of Astronomy, or things celestial, represented as crowned with stars and robed in azure. Milton, Paradise Lost, VII 1, makes the same invocation:— “Descend from heaven, Urania, by that name / If rightly thou art called, whose voice divine / Following, above the Olympian hill I soar, / Above the flight of Pegasean wing. / The meaning, not the name, I call: for thou / Nor of the Muses nine, nor on the top / Of old Olympus dwell’st; but, heavenly-born, / Before the hills appeared, or fountain flowed, / Thou with Eternal Wisdom didst converse, / Wisdom thy sister, and with her didst play / In presence of the Almighty Father, pleased / With thy celestial song.” ↩
The general form which objects may have in common, and by which they resemble each other. ↩
The faculty which lends discourse to reason is apprehension, or the faculty by which things are first conceived. See Canto XVIII 22:— “Your apprehension from some real thing / An image draws, and in yourselves displays it, / So that it makes the soul turn unto it.” ↩
Revelation 1:12, 20:— “And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And, being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks … And the seven candlesticks … are the seven churches.” Some commentators interpret them as the seven Sacraments of the Church; others, as the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost. ↩
Delia or Diana, the moon; and her girdle, the halo, sometimes seen around it. ↩
Revelation 4:4:— “And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold.” These four and twenty elders are supposed to symbolize here the four and twenty books of the Old Testament. The crown of lilies indicates the purity of faith and doctrine. ↩
The salutation of the angel to the Virgin Mary. Luke 1:28:— “Blessed art thou among women.” Here the words are made to refer to Beatrice. ↩
The four Evangelists, of whom the four mysterious animals in Ezekiel are regarded as symbols. Mrs. Jameson, Sacred and Legendary Art, I 99:— “The general application of the Four Creatures to the Four Evangelists is of much earlier date than the separate and individual application of each symbol, which has varied at different times; that propounded by St. Jerome, in his commentary on Ezekiel, has since his time prevailed universally. Thus, then— “To St. Matthew was given the Cherub, or human semblance, because he begins his Gospel with the human generation of Christ; or, according to others, because in his Gospel the human nature of the Saviour is more insisted on than the divine. In the most ancient mosaics, the type is human, not angelic, for the head is that of a man with a beard. “St. Mark has the Lion, because he has set forth the royal dignity of Christ; or, according to others, because he begins with the mission of the Baptist—‘the voice of one crying in the wilderness,’—which is figured by the lion: or, according to a third interpretation, the lion was allotted to St. Mark because there was, in the Middle Ages, a popular belief that the young of the lion was born dead, and after three days was awakened to vitality by the breath of its sire; some authors, however, represent the lion as vivifying his young, not by his breath, but by his roar. In either case the application is the same; the revival of the young lion was considered as symbolical of the resurrection, and Mark was commonly called the ‘historian of the resurrection.’ Another commentator observes that Mark begins his Gospel with ‘roaring,’—‘the voice of one crying in the wilderness’; and ends it fearfully with a curse—‘He that believeth not shall be damned’; and that, therefore, his appropriate attribute is the most terrible of beasts, the lion. “Luke has the Ox, because he has dwelt on the priesthood of Christ, the ox being the emblem of Sacrifice. “John has the Eagle, which is the symbol of the highest inspiration, because he soared upwards to the contemplation of the divine nature of the Saviour.” ↩
Ezekiel 1:4:— “And I looked, and behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof, as the color of amber, out of the midst of the fire. Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a man. And every one had four faces, and every one had four wings. And their feet were straight feet; and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf’s foot; and they sparkled like the color of burnished brass.” ↩
In Revelation 4:8, they are described as having “each of them six wings”; in Ezekiel, as having only four. ↩
The triumphal chariot is the Church. The two wheels are generally interpreted as meaning the Old and New Testaments; but Dante, Paradiso XII 106, speaks of them as St. Dominic and St. Francis. ↩
The Griffin, half lion and half eagle, is explained by all the commentators as a symbol of Christ, in his divine and human nature. Didron, in his Christian Iconography, interprets it differently. He says, Millington’s Tr., I 458:— “The mystical bird of two colors is understood in the manuscript of Herrade to mean the Church; in Dante, the bi-formed bird is the representative of the Church, the Pope. The Pope, in fact, is both priest and king; he directs the souls and governs the persons of men; he reigns over things in heaven. The Pope, then, is but one single person in two natures, and under two forms; he is both eagle and lion. In his character of Pontiff, or as an eagle, he hovers in the heavens, and ascends even to the throne of God to receive his commands; as the lion or king he walks upon the earth in strength and power.” He adds in a note:— “Some commentators of Dante have supposed the griffin to be the emblem of Christ, who, in fact, is one single person with two natures; of Christ, in whom God and man are combined. But in this they are mistaken; there is, in the first place, a manifest impropriety in describing the car as drawn by God as by a beast of burden. It is very doubtful even whether Dante can be altogether freed from the imputation of a want of reverence in harnessing the Pope to the car of the Church.” ↩
The wings of the Griffin extend upward between the middle list or trail of splendor of the seven candles and the three outer ones on each side. ↩
The chariot of the sun, which Phaeton had leave to drive for a day, is thus described by Ovid, Metamorphoses II, Addison’s Tr.:— “A golden axle did the work uphold, / Gold was the beam, the wheels were orbed with gold. / The spokes in rows of silver pleased the sight, / The seat with parti-colored gems was bright; / Apollo shined amid the glare of light.” ↩
In smiting Phaeton with a thunderbolt. Ovid, Metamorphoses II:— “Jove called to witness every power above, / And even the god whose son the chariot drove, / That what he acts he is compelled to do, / Or universal ruin must ensue. / Straight he ascends the high ethereal throne, / From whence he used to dart his thunder down, / From whence his showers and storms he used to pour, / But now could meet with neither storm nor shower; / Then, aiming at the youth, with lifted hand, / Full at his head he hurled the forky brand, / In dreadful thund’rings. Thus th’ almighty sire / Suppressed the raging of the fires with fire.” See also note 247. ↩
The three Theological or Evangelical Virtues, Charity, Hope, and Faith. For the symbolism of colors in Art, see Mrs. Jameson, Sacred and Legendary Art, quoted note 658. ↩
The four Cardinal Virtues, Justice, Prudence, Fortitude, and Temperance. They are clothed in purple to mark their nobility. Prudence is represented with three eyes, as looking at the past, the present, and the future. ↩
St. Luke and St. Paul. ↩
St. Luke is supposed to have been a physician; a belief founded on Colossians 4:14:— “Luke, the beloved physician.” The animal that nature holds most dear is man. ↩
The sword with which St. Paul is armed is a symbol of warfare and martyrdom; “I bring not peace, but a sword.” St. Luke’s office was to heal; St. Paul’s to destroy. Mrs. Jameson, Sacred and Legendary Art, I 188, says:— “At what period the sword was given to St. Paul as his distinctive attribute is with antiquaries a disputed point; certainly much later than the keys were given to Peter. If we could be sure that the mosaic on the tomb of Otho the Second, and another mosaic already described, had not been altered in successive restorations, these would be evidence that the sword was given to St. Paul as his attribute as early as the sixth century; but there are no monuments which can be absolutely trusted as regards the introduction of the sword before the end of the eleventh century; since the end of the fourteenth century it has been so generally adopted, that in the devotional effigies I can remember no instance in which it is omitted. When St. Paul is leaning on the sword, it expresses his martyrdom; when he holds it aloft, it expresses also his warfare in the cause of Christ: when two swords are given to him, one is the attribute, the other the emblem; but this double allusion does not occur in any of the older representations. In Italy I never met with St. Paul bearing two swords, and the only instance I can call to mind is the bronze statue by Peter Vischer, on the shrine of St. Sebald, at Nuremberg.” ↩
The four Apostles James, Peter, John, and Jude, writers of the Canonical Epistles. The red flowers, with which their foreheads seem all aflame, are symbols of martyrdom. Massinger, Virgin Martyr, V 1:— “What flowers are these? / In Dioclesian’s gardens, the most beauteous / Compared with these are weeds.” ↩
St. John, writer of the Apocalypse; here represented as asleep; as if he were “in the spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind him a great voice as of a trumpet.” Or perhaps the allusion may be to the belief of the early Christians that John did not die, but was sleeping till the second coming of Christ. This subject has been represented in medieval Art as follows. Mrs. Jameson, Sacred and Legendary Art, I 139:— “St. John, habited in priest’s garments, descends the steps of an altar into an open grave, in which he lays himself down, not in death, but in sleep, until the coming of Christ; ‘being reserved alive with Enoch and Elijah (who also knew not death), to preach against the Antichrist in the last days.’ This fanciful legend is founded on the following text: ‘Peter, seeing the disciple whom Jesus loved following, saith unto Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? Jesus saith unto him. If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Then went this saying abroad among the brethren that that disciple should not die.’ (John 21:21, 22.)” ↩
Of this canto and those that follow. Barlow, Study of the Divina Commedia, p. 270, says:— “Dante’s sublime pageant of the Church Militant is one of the most marvellous processions ever marshalled on paper. In the invention, arrangement, grouping, and coloring the poet has shown himself a great master in art, familiar with all the stately requirements of solemn shows, festivals, and triumphs. Whatever he may have gathered from the sacred records, and from classic writers, or seen in early mosaics, or witnessed in the streets of Florence with her joyous population, her May-day dancers, and the military pomp of her magnificent Carroccio, like the arc of the covenant going forth with the host, has here been surpassed in invention and erudition, and a picture produced at once as original as it is impressive, as significant as it is grand. Petrarca was, probably, indebted to it for his ‘Trionfi,’ so frequently in favor with Italian artists. “This canto with the four that follow form a poem which, though an essential portion of the Divina Commedia, may be separately considered as the continuation of the poetic vision mentioned in the Vita Nuova, and the fulfilment of the intention there expressed. “It represents the symbolical passage of the Christian Church, preceded by the Hebrew dispensation, and followed by the disastrous effects of schism, and the corruptions induced by the unholy conduct of political Pontiffs. The soul of this solemn exhibition, the living and glorified principle of the beatitude which Religion pure and holy confers upon those who embrace it, is personified in the ‘Donna,’ to whom Dante from his earliest youth had been more or less devoted, the Beatrice of the Vita Nuova, ‘Loda di Dio vera,’ who concentrates in herself the divine wisdom with which the Church is inspired, whom angels delight to honor, and whose advent on earth had been prepared from all eternity by the moral virtues. “Beatrice is here presented as the principle of divine beatitude, or that which confers it, and bears a resemblance to the figure of the New Jerusalem seen by St. John descending from heaven ‘as a bride adorned for her husband’ (Rev. 21:2); a representation of which, in the manner of Raphael, occurs in one of the tapestries of the Vatican, and, though not arrayed in the colors of the Christian virtues. Faith, Hope, and Charity, white and green and red, as was Beatrice, may yet be regarded as a Roman version of her.” Didron, describing the painting of the Triumph of Christ in the Church of Notre Dame de Brou, Christian Iconography, Millington’s Tr., I 315, says:— “In the centre of all rises the Hero of the Triumph, Jesus Christ, who is seated in an open car with four wheels. He alone is adorned with a nimbus formed of rays, departing from each point of the head, and which illumines everything around. With one glance he embraces the past which precedes, and the future which is to succeed him. His face resembles that drawn by Raphael and the masters of the period of Renaissance, agreeing with the description given by Lentulus and Damascenus; it is serious and gentle. In the centre of the chariot is placed a starry globe traversed by the ecliptic, on which the twelve signs of the zodiac are brilliantly figured. This globe is symbolic of the world, and forms a throne for Christ: the Son of God is seated on its summit. The car is placed upon four wheels, and drawn by the four attributes or symbols of the Evangelists. The angel of St. Matthew, and the eagle of St. John, are of celestial whiteness; the lion of St. Mark, and the ox of St. Luke, are of a reddish yellow, symbolizing the earth on which they dwell. The eagle and angel do, in fact, fly; while the lion and the ox walk. Yet upon the painted window all the four have wings. A rein of silver, passing round the neck of each of the four symbols, is attached to the pole of the chariot. The Church, represented by the four most elevated religious potentates, by the Pope, the Cardinal, the Archbishop, and Bishop, or by the four chief Fathers, St. Gregory, St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, and St. Augustine, drives the four-wheeled car, and, in conjunction with the Evangelists, urges it onward. Jesus guides his triumph, not holding reins, but shedding blessings from his right hand wherever he passes. “The entire assemblage of persons represented on the window are seen marching onwards, singing with joy. Within the spaces formed by the mullions which trellis the upper part of the window, forty-six angels are represented with long golden hair, white transparent robes, and wings of yellow, red, violet, and green; they are all painted on a background of azure, like the sky, and celebrate with blended voices, or with musical instruments, the glory of Christ. Some have in their hands instruments of different forms, others books of music. The four animals of the Evangelists seem with sonorous voice to swell the acclamations of the hosts of saints; the ox with his bellowing, the lion with his roar, the eagle with his cry, and the angel with his song, accompany the songs of the forty-six angels who fill the upper part of the window. At the head of the procession is an angel who leads the entire company, and, with a little cross which he holds in his hand, points out to all the Paradise they are to enter. Finally, twelve other angels, blue as the heaven into which they melt, join in adoration before the triumph of Christ. … “Dante has given a description of a similar triumph, but marked by some interesting differences. The Florentine poet formed his cortege of figures taken from the Apocalypse and Christian symbolism. At Brou, with the exception of the attributes of the Evangelists, everything is historical. In the sixteenth century, in fact, history began to predominate over symbolism, which in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries had reigned supreme. Dante, who was a politic poet, drew the triumph, not of Christ, but of the Church; the triumph of Catholicism rather than of Christianity. The chariot by which he represents the Church is widowed of Christ, whose figure is so important on the window of Brou; the chariot is empty, and Dante neither discovered this deficiency, nor was concerned to rectify it; for he was less anxious to celebrate Christ and his doctrine, for their own sake, than as connected with the organization and administration of the Church. He described the car as drawn by a griffin, thereby representing the Pope, for the griffin unites in itself the characteristics of both eagle and lion. Now the Pope is also twofold in character; as priest he is the eagle floating in the air; as king, he is a lion, walking upon the earth. The Ultramontane poet regarded the Church, that is the Papacy, in the light of an absolute monarchy; not a limited monarchy as with us, and still less a republic, as amongst the schismatics of Greece and of the East. Consequently, while, at Brou, the Cardinal, the Archbishop, and Bishop assist the Pope in guiding the car of the Church, in the ‘Divina Commedia,’ the Pope is alone, and accepts of no assistance from the other great ecclesiastical dignitaries. At Brou the car is guided by the Evangelists, or by their attributes; ecclesiastical power is content merely to lend its aid. According to the Italian poet, the Evangelists, although present at the Triumph, do not conduct it; the Pope is himself the sole guide of the Church, and permits neither the Evangelists to direct nor ecclesiastics to assist him. The Pope seems to require no assistance; his eye and arm alone are sufficient for him.” ↩