To run its course through smoother water
the small bark of my wit now hoists sail,
leaving that cruel sea behind.
These first three lines of the Purgatorio establish a number of the motifs and connections that will be developed throughout the book. The use of the boating metaphor immediately sets out the motif of navigation; Dante will use this motif to refer both to his spiritual 'journey' and the actual journey Dante the pilgrim is on. But importantly, this metaphor also connects navigation to Dante's own writing; his ship is "the small bark of [his] wit." As such, we might consider the Purgatorio itself as a sort of exploration, traveling through theology, history, philosophy, and politics, all the while guided by Dante's mind.
Reader, I would not have you fall away
from good intentions when you hear
the way God wills the debt be paid.
Here, in response to the first images of the penitents, Dante uses direct address to pull the reader into the poem, importantly recalling both his position as narrator and as a sort of guide for the reader. The Purgatorio deftly navigates between offering readers spiritual information and guidance and presenting fascinating poetry; one can especially see this in Robert and Jean Hollander's translation, which recreates some of Dante's rhyme scheme with the assonance of "away" and "paid." The rhyme ultimately suggests that "payment"—as penitence—is an important part of not going "away" from God. As such, Dante forces us to reflect just at the moment that we might be overwhelmed by his grotesque imagery.
that unreal depiction may arouse
in him who sees it real distress,
such were these shapes when I could make them out.
Here, at the end of the first canto featuring penitents, Dante reveals his thoughts about our reaction to art. The concept that "unreal depictions" can cause "real distress" might implicitly suggest why he himself, as a poet, uses such grotesque images: these elicit real reactions in his audience, reactions which might goad the audience to change their behavior. This linkage between "unreal" things and real reactions is especially emphasized in the Italian, where the line uses syntactical proximity, alliteration, and assonance to emphasize their close connection: "non ver" (not real) is directly followed by "vera rancura" (real distress).
I straightened up, erect,
as one should walk, but my thoughts
remained bowed down and shrunken.
Following his experience with the penitents of pride, Dante suggests that he himself has gone through something of a transformation. The contrast between his "straightened" body and his "shrunken" thoughts is emphasized by the balance of the stanza, divided perfectly between the two by a sort of caesura (a type of mid-line break) between "walk" and "thoughts." This contrast, present also in the Italian, brings to the fore the fact that as Dante ascends the mountain of Purgatory, he too is working on reducing the hold certain sins, like Pride, have over him; in a way, he himself learns from each group of penitents and suffers with them.
“from this you surely understand that love
must be the seed in you of every virtue
and of every deed that merits punishment.”
Here, Virgil develops a theory of sin and virtue that is seemingly quite particular to Dante, and it speaks to the centrality of love in the Commedia. Not only are these lines quite near the actual center of the poem as a whole, but they also echo Dante's primary motivation, his love of Beatrice. Indeed, the center line ties "the seed" of love with "you" and "virtue" through rhyme, suggesting the close tie between the experience of love and the development of virtue.
"The sparks that kindled the fire in me
came from the holy flame
from which more than a thousand have been lit—
I mean the Aeneid. When I wrote my poems
it was my mamma and my nurse.
Without it, I would not have weighed a dram."
As Statius joins with Virgil and Dante, and before he realizes he is in fact next to Virgil, he speaks these lines, suggesting the importance of the Aeneid. Importantly, he picks up on the use of fire imagery to represent the "spark" of the imagination, a spark tied by Dante to divine inspiration earlier in the Purgatorio. Yet this passage also reveals a strange problem that lends depth to Virgil's place in the Purgatorio. While Dante and Statius clearly consider Virgil's poem "holy," Virgil himself is not saved. This tension reveals a complex and human version of Virgil, who works as a dedicated guide to Dante (both aesthetically and spiritually) while being unable to achieve salvation himself.
"No longer wait for word or sign from me.
Your will is free, upright, and sound.
Not to act as if it chooses unworthy;
over yourself I crown and miter you."
This, the final time Virgil speaks in the Commedia, signals an important change in Dante's character. Whereas he begins the Inferno lost and unable to control himself, with his will as defective as his slightly broken foot, now at the end of Virgil's guidance, he has control over himself, symbolized especially by the "crown and miter" Virgil suggests. The correction of Dante's will comes to be one of the longest and most important narrative arcs of the poem, encapsulated here in Virgil's last lines.
Desire upon desire so seized me to ascend
that with every step
I felt that I was growing wings for flight.
Here, we can see how Dante links physical ascent with his desire for Beatrice. Importantly, Dante seems to contrast how grounded he is, taking things step by step, with his sense that he is developing "wings." It is then his desire, connected with love, which seems to move him away from the earth (connected to the feet) and up towards Heaven. Yet the focus on his "step" also connects to Dante's poetry; we might think of how Dante's poetic "feet" (units of poetic language) are ascending upward, towards God.
“He set his steps upon an untrue way,
pursuing those false images of good
that bring no promise to fulfillment—"
Here, Beatrice's speech to Dante both castigates him and builds on a number of the themes of the Purgatorio. First, it picks up on the motif of navigation, depicting sin as "an untrue way" (an alliterative via non vera in the Italian). Second, it suggests the importance of hope and "fulfillment," the second being possible, according to Dante, only through divine love. And third, it ties these two into the concept of "false images," a concept relevant to the work of poetry. Yet it seems with the Commedia that Dante found a way to write using unreal images that were still, in some way, true.
"Broken would be the high decree of God
should Lethe be crossed and its sustenance
be tasted without payment of some fee:
his penitence that shows itself in tears."
As early as the first Terrace, Dante depicts penitence as a form of repayment; here, Beatrice picks up this motif and applies it to Dante himself. But importantly, we can see how it is Dante's "tears," rather than his words, which do the repaying. Dante the poet skillfully depicts his own silence in the face of Beatrice's speech, revealing how it can be emotion which serves a spiritual purpose; in a way, his punishment is to be unable to speak through his torrent of tears.
