Purgatorio XXX — The Cloud of Flowers

Before reading

The procession has halted at the bank opposite the pilgrim. The chariot waits empty. The seven candlesticks stand still and the elders sing. The canto you are about to read is the structural centre of the entire Commedia — the moment for which the seventy-three cantos before it have been preparing, and out of which the twenty-six cantos that follow will move. It is also the canto that loses the pilgrim his guide.

Where the canto sits

This is the central canto of the Commedia in a precise way. Inferno and Paradiso each have thirty-three cantos; Purgatorio has thirty-three plus the introductory canto that opens the whole poem. The poem is built as a hundred-canto arc, and the sixty-fourth canto — Purgatorio XXX — sits closer to the middle than any other to the moment the poem turns. Two things turn here. Virgil disappears — without warning, without ceremony, and without the pilgrim noticing in time to say goodbye. Beatrice arrives — on the chariot, veiled, and her first words to Dante are the only place in the entire poem his own name is used.

The structure is brutally precise. The pilgrim, terrified by the ancient flame that Beatrice's presence rekindles in him, turns to Virgil to confess his fear — and finds the page Virgil should be on already turned. The discovery and the loss are simultaneous.

What it helps to know

The arrival is staged as the second coming of a beloved. Twenty-four elders sing Veni, sponsa, de Libano — Come, spouse, from Lebanon — the Latin Vulgate of the Song of Songs 4:8. A hundred angels rise from the chariot crying Benedictus qui venis, the Blessed is he that cometh from Matthew 21:9, but in the masculine form (Dante writes venis — thou comest — instead of the feminine that should be used to greet a woman). The poem is making a deliberate gender substitution, applying to Beatrice the words of the crowd at the entry of Christ into Jerusalem. Beatrice arrives as Christ arrives.

A second quotation, in Latin, is from Virgil's own Aeneid. As the angels scatter flowers above the chariot, they sing Manibus o date lilia plenis — Give lilies with full hands — Aeneid VI.883, the lament for the dead Marcellus, nephew of Augustus, who died young and was mourned as the lost hope of Rome. Dante is quoting his own master to introduce the figure who will replace him. The flowers Virgil's text strewed on a Roman tomb are now scattered to welcome the lady whose arrival ends Virgil's office.

Beatrice arrives veiled. She is under a green mantle, vested in colour of the living flame, with a snow-white veil with olive cinct — green for hope, flame for charity, white for faith, olive for wisdom. Her face is not visible. The veil will not be lifted in this canto and will not be fully lifted until canto XXXI. Dante does not see Beatrice's face here; he recognises her by the ancient flame that her presence rekindles in him before any feature is visible.

Three things about that ancient flame. First, it is the line by which Dante turns to Virgil. Conosco i segni de l'antica fiamma — I know the traces of the ancient flame. Second, the line is a near-quotation of Dido's confession to her sister Anna in Aeneid IV.23 — Adgnosco veteris vestigia flammae — I recognise the traces of the old flame. Third, in Virgil's text the line is Dido's confession of falling in love with Aeneas — a love that destroyed her. Dante is using Dido's line about a love that ends in suicide to describe his love for Beatrice, the woman who will save him. The borrowing is staged for Virgil to hear. Virgil hears the line; Virgil has gone before the line is finished.

What to read for

Listen for the moment Virgil disappears. The canto does not show it. It records the pilgrim's discovery of the absence after the absence has already happened. But us Virgilius of himself deprived had left, Virgilius, sweetest of all fathers, Virgilius, to whom I for safety gave me. The three repetitions of the name are the poem's grieving. Read them slowly.

Listen for the first thing Beatrice says. She speaks across the river, still veiled. Dante. The poem has gone sixty-three cantos without using its author's name. It uses it once, here, in the mouth of the woman he has come to find — and what she does with the name is rebuke.

Listen for what Beatrice's rebuke is for. She does not say welcome. She does not say come. She says do not weep yet for Virgil; you will weep for a worse wound. The wound is named without being explained, and the rest of the canto and the next is the explanation.

Listen for the pilgrim's reaction to the rebuke. He does not defend himself. He does not speak. The whole second half of the canto is Beatrice speaking and the pilgrim weeping; the speech is the canto's longest single piece of direct address to the pilgrim by any figure in the poem to this point.

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From here on: illustrations and analysis. The three images below are scenes from the canto, and after them comes the close reading — famous lines quoted in full, paradoxes explained, political and theological freight unpacked. If you have not yet read the canto, stop here — read it, then come back.

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After reading

What the canto did

The structural centre of the Commedia. The procession that arrived in canto XXIX halted; an elder sang the Song of Songs; a hundred angels rose from the chariot scattering lilies and crying blessed is he who comes — in the masculine, as if Christ himself were entering; and in the cloud of flowers a lady appeared on the chariot in green and flame and white, her face hidden behind a veil. The pilgrim, recognising her by an interior fire before he could see her, turned to his left to confess his trembling to the master who had brought him here. Virgil was not there. Virgil had gone. The pilgrim wept, and the lady on the chariot, hearing him weep, called him by name — the only place in the Commedia his own name is used — and rebuked him for weeping for the wrong wound. The canto ends with Beatrice across the river, still veiled, accusing.

The canto is the hinge on which everything before and everything after the Commedia turns. The reading-time it asks for is a long one.

The arrival

The arrival is staged as a second coming. The elder sings Veni, sponsa, de Libano — Come, spouse, from Lebanon, Song of Songs 4:8, the bridegroom calling the bride. A hundred angels rise crying Benedictus qui venis — the Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord of Matthew 21:9, the cry of the crowd as Christ entered Jerusalem. The Latin grammar is the canto's most studied detail: the angels say venis (thou comest, masculine, as in the original gospel) and not venit (she comes, feminine, as Italian grammar would require if Beatrice were the referent). The poem is applying to Beatrice, in Latin, the words said to Christ. The angels then quote a third source — Manibus o date lilia plenis, give lilies with full hands, Aeneid VI.883 — Virgil's own elegy for the dead Marcellus. The flowers Virgil's text scattered on a Roman tomb are now scattered to welcome the lady whose arrival ends Virgil's office. The poem is summoning Beatrice in three voices simultaneously — the Song of Songs, the gospels, and Virgil himself — and the third voice is Virgil's last service in the Commedia.

Beatrice appears under three colours and a veil. Green mantle (hope), flame-coloured dress (charity), snow-white veil with olive (faith and wisdom). The veil is the first thing the canto names about her face, and Eve is the last thing the canto named in the previous one — the woman only could not endure to stay neath any veil. The first woman undid the garden by refusing the veil; the second woman restores it by wearing one. The veil will not be lifted in this canto. Dante will not see Beatrice's face until canto XXXI.

Recognition before sight

What Dante recognises is not a face but an internal sensation. And my own spirit, that already now so long a time had been, that in her presence trembling with awe it had not stood abashed, without more knowledge having by mine eyes, through occult virtue that from her proceeded of ancient love the mighty influence felt. The body of the pilgrim registers Beatrice's presence before his eye finds her. Then comes the line the canto's whole architecture depends on. To the left hand I turned with that reliance with which the little child runs to his mother, when he has fear, or when he is afflicted, to say unto Virgilius: Not a drachm of blood remains in me, that does not tremble; I know the traces of the ancient flame.

The last line is in Dido's voice. Adgnosco veteris vestigia flammae — I recognise the traces of the old flame — Aeneid IV.23, Dido confessing to Anna that she is falling in love with Aeneas. In Virgil's own poem the line is the beginning of a love that will destroy Dido; in Dante's poem it is the beginning of a love that will save Dante. The borrowing is staged with Virgil at Dante's elbow so that Virgil can hear his own line being repurposed. Virgil never hears it. The line ends; Virgil has gone.

Virgil's disappearance

The canto does not show Virgil leaving. It shows the pilgrim discovering the absence. The discovery is given in three tercets that the Commedia has never asked anything of more than it asks of these. Read them slowly:

But us Virgilius of himself deprived had left, Virgilius, sweetest of all fathers, Virgilius, to whom I for safety gave me. Nor whatsoever lost the ancient mother availed my cheeks now purified from dew, that weeping they should not again be darkened.

Ma Virgilio n'avea lasciati scemi di sé, Virgilio dolcissimo padre, Virgilio a cui per mia salute die'mi. The three repetitions of the name are the form of the lament. Each repetition adds one more attribute — who has left us bereft, sweetest father, to whom I gave myself for safety — and each repetition is also the wound. The poem is doing what the Hebrew bible does at moments of greatest grief: it repeats the lost name three times. Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son. The structural model is Davidic lament. The grief is being given the highest register the Christian poet had available.

The grief immediately runs against what the canto says it should not do. The purified from dew of the pilgrim's cheeks — washed clean by Virgil on the shore of canto I — availed not to keep them from being darkened by weeping again. The whole Purgatorio's washing-clean was undone by Virgil's leaving. The canto registers, in a single image, that there is a wound the seven cornices could not prepare for.

The name and the rebuke

Then comes the voice from the chariot. Dante, perché Virgilio se ne vada, non pianger anco, non pianger ancora; ché pianger ti convien per altra spada. Dante, because Virgilius has departed, do not weep yet, do not weep yet awhile; for by another sword thou need'st must weep.

The poem has used the pilgrim's own name once, here, in the mouth of Beatrice, and the Commedia immediately apologises for it: of necessity is here recorded. The convention of the poem had been to call its narrator I, poet, pilgrim, Florentine, the one who saw — never by his name. Beatrice's first word breaks that convention. The breaking is the poem's quiet acknowledgement that the woman who can use his name is the woman who has authority over him in a way none of the other figures have had.

What the name is used for is rebuke. Do not weep yet for Virgil. The pilgrim's grief is judged premature. There is another sword, and the wound from that sword is the one he is about to be made to weep for. The rest of the canto and the whole of canto XXXI are the explanation. The wound is Dante's own life after Beatrice died — the years between 1290 and 1300 in which, by the Commedia's judgment, he turned away from the love that should have led him upward and toward false images of good. The pilgrim wept for Virgil; Beatrice tells him he has not yet wept for what he should weep for, which is himself.

What Beatrice's first speech says

The long second half of the canto is Beatrice's address to the angels — but it is spoken in the third person so that he may hear me who is weeping yonder. The technique is the technique of a prosecutor who addresses the jury so that the accused will overhear. The case Beatrice lays out is structurally precise:

This man was given high gifts. So much more malignant the land untilled, the more good earthly vigour it possesses. Then a biographical account: in her youth she sustained him with her look and led him toward the right way; when she died (as soon as ever of my second age I was upon the threshold), he abandoned her for others and pursued false images of good; her prayers in dreams did not call him back; for this I visited the gates of death — for this she went to Limbo to find Virgil and send him into Hell to fetch the pilgrim — and the only way to save him was to show him the people of perdition. The whole Inferno, on this account, was Beatrice's last resort to save the pilgrim who had not heard her dreams.

The closing tercet is the canto's most uncompromising line. God's lofty fiat would be violated, if Lethe should be passed, and if such viands should tasted be, withouten any scot of penitence, that gushes forth in tears. Lethe waits across the river; the river of the Earthly Paradise; the river of the forgetting of sin. To drink it without first weeping for what is to be forgotten would be a violation. The penance is not over. The seven cornices were the purgation; the contrition is in the half-canto that begins next.

A reading that the canto allows but does not insist on

The orthodox reading of Virgil's disappearance is theological: pagan reason can take a soul to the threshold of Paradise but not into it; Virgil's office ends because his competence ends. The reading is correct as far as it goes and the Commedia has been preparing it for sixty-three cantos.

A second reading the canto permits: Virgil's disappearance is also a failure of love. The pilgrim turned to Virgil with that reliance with which the little child runs to his mother; Virgil was not there to be turned to. Beatrice's first words are not welcome; they are do not weep yet for him. The canto records two losses — the pagan poet's office and the pagan poet's presence — and refuses to console the pilgrim for the second. This second reading is not the canto's preferred one but it is the one that gives the grief its full weight. The Christian salvation requires the loss of Virgil; the pilgrim's heart, at the moment of salvation, has the right to break.

The Commedia does not resolve the tension. It writes the loss into the centre of the poem and does not allow the consolation to begin yet. The next canto will continue Beatrice's prosecution. The consolation will arrive only after the river is crossed and the veil is lifted.

Famous and meaningful passages

The song of the elder.

And one of them, as if by Heaven commissioned, Singing, Veni, sponsa, de Libano Shouted three times, and all the others after. (Purg. XXX.10–12)

The Song of Songs called out to summon the bride. The arrival of Beatrice begins as the second coming of the Spouse.

The angels and the lilies.

They all were saying, Benedictus qui venis, And, scattering flowers above and round about, Manibus o date lilia plenis. (Purg. XXX.19–21)

Three quotations in two lines — gospel, Virgil. The masculine venis applies Christ's welcome to Beatrice; the Aeneid line is borrowed from Virgil to welcome the woman who replaces him.

Beatrice arrives.

Over her snow-white veil with olive cinct Appeared a lady under a green mantle, Vested in colour of the living flame. (Purg. XXX.31–33)

Three colours and a veil. The face entirely concealed.

The ancient flame.

To the left hand I turned with that reliance With which the little child runs to his mother, When he has fear, or when he is afflicted, To say unto Virgilius: Not a drachm Of blood remains in me, that does not tremble; I know the traces of the ancient flame. (Purg. XXX.43–48)

Dido's line about Aeneas, in Dante's mouth about Beatrice, addressed to Virgil — who is no longer there to hear it.

The disappearance.

But us Virgilius of himself deprived Had left, Virgilius, sweetest of all fathers, Virgilius, to whom I for safety gave me… (Purg. XXX.49–51)

The most famous tercet of the Purgatorio. The triple repetition of the name as Davidic lament.

The name and the rebuke.

Dante, because Virgilius has departed Do not weep yet, do not weep yet awhile; For by another sword thou need'st must weep. (Purg. XXX.55–57)

The only place in the Commedia Dante's own name is used. Of necessity is here recorded.

The first words of Beatrice.

Look at me well; in sooth I'm Beatrice! How didst thou deign to come unto the Mountain? Didst thou not know that man is happy here? (Purg. XXX.73–75)

The questions are accusations. How didst thou deign to come — how did you have the face to come — the Italian come degnasti d'accedere al monte is severe, near contempt.

The lost reflection.

Mine eyes fell downward into the clear fountain, But, seeing myself therein, I sought the grass, So great a shame did weigh my forehead down. (Purg. XXX.76–78)

The pilgrim sees his own reflection in Lethe and looks away. He cannot bear what he is.

The river of grace.

God's lofty fiat would be violated, If Lethe should be passed, and if such viands Should tasted be, withouten any scot Of penitence, that gushes forth in tears. (Purg. XXX.142–145)

Lethe cannot be drunk without contrition. The seven cornices were not the end of the work.

What to watch for

Watch Beatrice's veil. It will be partly lifted in canto XXXI, fully lifted in canto XXXII. The face Dante has come a hundred cantos to see will be revealed in pieces.

Watch the river. The pilgrim is still on the wrong side of it. Matelda, not Beatrice, will drag him across at the next canto's end. Beatrice does not come down to meet him.

Watch the name Dante. It has been used once; it will not be used again. The Commedia permits its author one single instance of his own naming, and that instance is in the mouth of the woman who is calling him to account.

Watch Virgil. He will not appear or be named again. The next time his name surfaces in the Commedia — Paradiso XXVI — it will be in the context of an absence. The poem has lost him. The reader is asked to live with the loss for the seventy more cantos of the journey.

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This post is part of Reading Divine Comedy, a slow daily companion to Dante's Commedia in the Longfellow translation — read one canto at a time, with a short orientation before and a close reading after. From Inferno I to Paradiso XXXIII.