Purgatorio XXXI — The Confession

Before reading

Beatrice's accusation from the previous canto picks up immediately. She is still on the chariot; the pilgrim is still on the wrong side of the river; the rebuke continues. This canto is the confession — extracted from the pilgrim by a prosecutor who does not let him deflect. After the confession comes the crossing of the river (the Commedia's baptism) and the first unveiling.

Where the canto sits

This is the second of the six cantos of the Earthly Paradise and the second half of the great central scene of the Commedia. Canto XXX was the arrival; canto XXXI is the processing of the arrival. The structure of the two is unequal — canto XXX gave us the appearance of Beatrice and the loss of Virgil; canto XXXI gives us the confession, the crossing, the first sight of the unveiled eyes. The whole apparatus of penance the seven cornices built is being completed in two cantos by the woman who summoned the whole journey.

What it helps to know

The confession is the most personal piece of writing in the Commedia. It concerns Dante's life between 1290 (when Beatrice died) and 1300 (when the journey of the poem takes place). In those ten years, by the canto's account, Dante turned away from Beatrice — and from the love of the good for which she had stood — and pursued false images of good and vanities of such brief use. The medieval reader would have heard, in vanities of such brief use, an admission of moral failure rather than literary one — though one tradition reads the little girl (pargoletta) Beatrice mentions as a real young woman Dante had cared for after Beatrice's death, and Dante's own Rime petrose (the so-called stony rhymes) of the late 1290s as the false images the canto names.

The reading is therefore double. Either Beatrice is accusing Dante of literary infidelity — turning from the stil novo of Donne ch'avete intelletto d'amore to a harsher and more sensual poetry — or she is accusing him of personal infidelity to her memory — turning to other women, and to other ambitions, after she died. The canto does not choose; the language permits both. Read both readings simultaneously. The Commedia has never required the two to be separated.

The crossing of the river is staged as a baptism. Matelda — the beautiful lady — drags Dante across, lightly as a shuttle; on the far side the voices sing Asperges me, the Latin Vulgate verse from Psalm 51 thou shalt sprinkle me, Lord, with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed. Matelda then plunges him underneath and makes him swallow the water of Lethe. The pilgrim's penance is sealed sacramentally.

The four nymphs who lead him to Beatrice on the far bank are the four cardinal virtues — Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance — We here are Nymphs, and in the Heaven are stars; Ere Beatrice descended to the world, We as her handmaids were appointed her. The three theological virtues (Charity, Hope, Faith) will be referenced as the three who more profoundly look at Beatrice's eyes.

At the canto's end, Beatrice unveils — only her eyes, not yet her mouth. Dante looks into them and sees the Griffin reflected, switching between its two natures. Now with the one, now with the other nature. The first vision of Christ in the Commedia is given as a reflection in Beatrice's eyes.

What to read for

Listen for the prosecutor's technique. Beatrice does not let Dante speak until he has answered her question, and when he tries to deflect, she gives him no rest. Say, say if this be true; to such a charge, thy own confession needs must be conjoined. The legal vocabulary is precise — charge (accusa), confession, judge, tribunal. The canto is a courtroom scene.

Listen for Dante's first attempt at an answer — and notice that the answer is so small the Commedia describes it physically rather than transcribing it. Such a Yes! from out my mouth, that sight was needful to the understanding of it. The Italian sì was the word so faint it had to be seen on the lips rather than heard.

Listen for the beard. The pilgrim has been told to lift his head, and the line by which Beatrice asks for it is — for a thirty-five-year-old man writing about himself — a small piece of self-mockery. Lift up thy beard, and thou shalt feel a greater pain in seeing. The line is severe; it is also one of the Commedia's rare moments of physical comedy at the pilgrim's expense.

Listen for the moment the pilgrim faints. He faints twice in this canto — once when the thorn of penitence stings him most deeply, and once when he is dragged underwater in Lethe. The two swoons are the canto's structural breath.

Listen for the closing image: the Griffin in Beatrice's eyes. Dante is being given his first sight of Christ, and it is given by reflection.

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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 confession that canto XXX prepared was extracted. The pilgrim said Yes so faintly the canto records that his mouth had to be seen rather than heard. Beatrice did not relent. She set out a second time the bill of particulars — that the death of her body should have called him upward, not toward vanities of such brief use, and that the small thing he had chased was not even a girl already fledged. The pilgrim wept, fell, and lost consciousness. He woke half submerged in the river. Matelda dragged him across, plunged him underwater, made him swallow of Lethe, and brought him to stand before Beatrice on the far bank. The four cardinal virtues led him by the hand; the three theological virtues asked Beatrice to unveil. She lifted only the eyes. The pilgrim looked into them and saw the Griffin reflected, switching between its two natures. The canto closes on the first hint of the unveiled face — the second beauty, still concealed — and on the prayer of the dancers to see it.

The grammar of the prosecution

The first half of the canto is a courtroom. Beatrice's vocabulary is legal — charge, confession, judge, tribunal, the wheel against the edge (the metaphor of a sword on a grindstone). She is precise about the structure: confession is required not because the judge does not already know the offence — not less manifest would be thy fault, by such a Judge 'tis known — but because the act of self-accusation reverses the act of sinning. When from one's own cheeks comes bursting forth the accusal of the sin, in our tribunal against the edge the wheel doth turn itself. The grindstone of judgment is blunted by the confession that meets it.

The pilgrim's defence, when he manages one, is conventional. The things that present were with their false pleasure turned aside my steps, soon as your countenance concealed itself. He was distracted; the world tempted; he turned. Beatrice accepts the form of the defence and then turns it against him. Never to thee presented art or nature pleasure so great as the fair limbs wherein I was enclosed, which scattered are in earth. And if the highest pleasure thus did fail thee by reason of my death, what mortal thing should then have drawn thee into its desire? The argument is rigorous. If the greatest mortal pleasure failed when she died, no mortal pleasure could have been worth chasing. The pursuit of the smaller after the loss of the greater is the precise structure of the sin.

The next image is the canto's most cutting. Thou oughtest not to have stooped thy pinions downward to wait for further blows, or little girl, or other vanity of such brief use. The callow birdlet waits for two or three, but to the eyes of those already fledged, in vain the net is spread or shaft is shot. The pilgrim is a fledged bird who let himself be netted as if he were a callow one. The little girl — pargoletta — has been read for centuries as either a specific young woman Dante had loved after Beatrice's death (Dante used the word pargoletta in his own lyric I'mi son pargoletta bella e nova) or as a figure for any minor good chased instead of the supreme one. The canto does not disambiguate.

What was the sin

The sin Beatrice is prosecuting is not lust, or pride, or any of the seven capital sins that the seven cornices have already purged. The seven cornices were for sins committed as such. The sin Beatrice is naming is the larger sin that produced them: turning from the love that should have led him upward and toward false images of good. Le presenti cose con lor falso piacer volser miei passi. The false images are the doctrinal term — images that have the form of the good (because every thing chosen as a good has at least the appearance of one) but are not the good itself. The whole Inferno, on this reading, was Beatrice's last resort to bring the pilgrim's attention back from images to reality. The whole Purgatorio was the slow undoing of the habits the images had built.

The reading the canto allows but does not insist on: the sin is also literary. The Donne ch'avete intelletto d'amore of the Vita Nuova was the love-poetry written for Beatrice. The Rime petrose — the stony rhymes of Dante's late 1290s — were a harsh, dark, sensual love-poetry written for an unnamed woman of stone. The Convivio, Dante's prose treatise of the same period, addressed not Beatrice but Lady Philosophy. On the literary reading, Beatrice is accusing Dante of turning from her love-poetry to other kinds, and the false images of good are other muses. The Commedia itself, on this reading, is the act of repentance — a poem that returns to Beatrice as its centre. The two readings — moral and literary — are not exclusive. The canto permits both.

The crossing as baptism

Dante faints from the thorn of penitence. When he wakes, Matelda — who has been silent since canto XXVIII — has come for him. She draws him into the river to the throat, dragging him across upon the water lightly as a shuttle. The shuttle-image is precise: Matelda glides across the surface like a weaver's shuttle through a loom, and the pilgrim trails behind her like the thread. Then Asperges me — thou shalt sprinkle me, Lord, with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed, Psalm 51:7, the verse the medieval church chanted at the entrance to mass — is sung from the far bank. Matelda opened wide her arms, embraced my head, and plunged me underneath, where I was forced to swallow of the water.

The crossing is staged as the sacramental seal of Purgatory. Lethe takes away the memory of sin — not the fact of the sin (which the pilgrim will still know) but the sting of it, the way an old wound that has healed leaves a scar without pain. The water of Lethe completes what the seven cornices began. The crossing is the most explicit baptism scene in the Commedia, and the woman who performs it is not Beatrice but Matelda. The Comedy's economy: Beatrice does not come down from the chariot to fetch the pilgrim; he is brought to her, by another woman, through the water.

The dance of the virtues

On the far bank the four nymphs who lead Dante to the Griffin name themselves. We here are Nymphs, and in the Heaven are stars; Ere Beatrice descended to the world, We as her handmaids were appointed her. The four cardinal virtues — Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance — were Beatrice's handmaids from before the Incarnation; they are now the stars of the constellation that is visible only from the southern hemisphere (the four stars of Purgatorio I that Cato saw at the foot of the mountain). We'll lead thee to her eyes; but for the pleasant light that within them is, shall sharpen thine the three beyond, who more profoundly look.

The three beyond are the theological virtues — Charity, Hope, Faith — and they look more profoundly because they see the divine directly. The cardinal virtues can lead the pilgrim to Beatrice's eyes; only the theological virtues can sharpen the pilgrim's sight to see what is in them. The structure is precise: natural virtue can deliver the soul to the threshold; supernatural virtue is required for what waits beyond it.

The Griffin in the eyes

The unveiling is partial. The three theological virtues beg Beatrice to unveil thy face to him, so that he may discern the second beauty which thou dost conceal. She lifts the veil only at the eyes. The pilgrim looks into them and sees the Griffin — the two-natured beast — reflected. As in a glass the sun, not otherwise within them was the twofold monster shining, now with the one, now with the other nature. The first vision of Christ in the Commedia is given by reflection in the eyes of the beloved. Dante does not see the Griffin directly; he sees it in Beatrice's eyes. The vision is mediated, as Christian vision must be in this poem, by the woman who summoned the journey.

The image is one of the Commedia's great theological pictures. To see Christ truly requires the eyes of the saved beloved; the eyes of the saved beloved show Christ as he is — alternating between the divine and the human nature, never collapsed into either. The two natures are present in the same reflection, switching but not separated. The Chalcedonian formula of the two natures in one person is rendered as the optics of love.

The second beauty

The canto closes on the prayer for the second beauty. In grace do us the grace that thou unveil thy face to him, so that he may discern the second beauty which thou dost conceal. The first beauty is the eyes, now unveiled; the second beauty is the mouth and the smile. Dante will not see the smile of Beatrice in this canto. The canto stops on the prayer.

The poem's pacing of the unveiling is one of its small structural masterstrokes. The arrival in canto XXX was wholly veiled; the eyes in canto XXXI are unveiled but the lower face is not; the full unveiling is held back for canto XXXII. The Commedia gives the reader the face of the beloved by instalments, and the unveiling is in inverse proportion to the pilgrim's worthiness. He could not bear the full sight at the moment of arrival; he can bear the eyes only after the confession; he will bear the smile only after the river is behind him.

Famous and meaningful passages

The forced confession.

Awhile she waited; then she said: What thinkest? Answer me; for the mournful memories In thee not yet are by the waters injured. Confusion and dismay together mingled Forced such a Yes! from out my mouth, that sight Was needful to the understanding of it. (Purg. XXXI.10–15)

The Sì so faint it had to be seen on the lips. The smallest word in the Commedia, and the heaviest.

The grindstone of judgment.

When from one's own cheeks comes bursting forth The accusal of the sin, in our tribunal Against the edge the wheel doth turn itself. (Purg. XXXI.40–42)

The doctrine of confession in a single image. The sword of judgment is blunted by the grindstone that turns against its own cutting.

The argument from the greater pleasure.

Never to thee presented art or nature Pleasure so great as the fair limbs wherein I was enclosed, which scattered are in earth. And if the highest pleasure thus did fail thee By reason of my death, what mortal thing Should then have drawn thee into its desire? (Purg. XXXI.49–54)

If the greatest mortal pleasure failed when she died, no mortal pleasure could have justified the chase that followed.

The little girl.

Thou oughtest not to have stooped thy pinions downward To wait for further blows, or little girl, Or other vanity of such brief use. (Purg. XXXI.58–60)

Pargoletta — the small woman, the unnamed muse of the Rime petrose, the figure for any minor good chased after the loss of the greatest.

The lifted beard.

If thou In hearing sufferest pain, lift up thy beard And thou shalt feel a greater pain in seeing. (Purg. XXXI.67–69)

Beatrice's small piece of self-mocking severity. The grown man whose beard now indicts him.

The shuttle.

Up to my throat she in the stream had drawn me, And, dragging me behind her, she was moving Upon the water lightly as a shuttle. (Purg. XXXI.94–96)

Matelda gliding across the surface of Lethe drawing the pilgrim like a thread.

The baptism.

The beautiful lady opened wide her arms, Embraced my head, and plunged me underneath, Where I was forced to swallow of the water. (Purg. XXXI.100–102)

The Commedia's explicit baptism. The water swallowed; the past forgotten.

The naming of the virtues.

We here are Nymphs, and in the Heaven are stars; Ere Beatrice descended to the world, We as her handmaids were appointed her. We'll lead thee to her eyes; but for the pleasant Light that within them is, shall sharpen thine The three beyond, who more profoundly look. (Purg. XXXI.106–111)

The four cardinal virtues identified as Beatrice's handmaids and as the four stars Cato saw at the foot of the mountain. The three theological virtues distinguished as those who more profoundly look.

The Griffin reflected.

As in a glass the sun, not otherwise Within them was the twofold monster shining, Now with the one, now with the other nature. (Purg. XXXI.121–123)

The first vision of Christ in the Commedia, given as a reflection in Beatrice's eyes. The two natures alternating in the same reflection.

The prayer.

In grace do us the grace that thou unveil Thy face to him, so that he may discern The second beauty which thou dost conceal. (Purg. XXXI.136–138)

The theological virtues asking for the unveiling. The smile of Beatrice waits one more canto.

What to watch for

Watch the chariot. The next canto will leave the personal scene of confession and turn to the political. The chariot of the Church will be transformed by an eagle, a fox, an eagle returning to deposit feathers, a dragon, and finally a whore with a giant — the Commedia's great allegory of the corruption of the Church.

Watch the second beauty. The smile of Beatrice, prayed for at the end of this canto, will be granted at the beginning of the next.

Watch the verb vidi. Beatrice's Vidi e però ti scrivo — See, and write what thou hast seen — at the end of canto XXXII will turn the pilgrim from the recipient of the vision into its scribe. The Commedia is about to claim that its political prophecies are commissioned by Beatrice in the garden of Eden.

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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.