Purgatory: Canto VII -- Ante-Purgatory: The Negligent Rulers

Plato, in the Republic writes, "Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils -- no, nor the human race, as I believe -- and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day." It is Dante's ultimate idea that those in this flowering valley were such models of kingship as the philosopher kings (note his continued reliance on Plato in the political sphere where he'd abandoned his reliance on Plato in the sphere of love). It is that which makes this flowering valley comparable to that which we found in Limbo in the Citadel of Human Reason, with the chief difference being that the flowering valley is graced with Divine Love, and this must surely send Virgil back home with a staggering sense of pain for the deficiency of his own state of being like the novice who thinks his artwork great and then compares it to Michelangelo.



Virgil, moreover, has not only marked the difference between this valley and the one in which he resides, but he has also had to consciously strike from his mind any question he might have concerning it. As he explains to Sordello, he is from the kingdom of pain, "where sorrow lies/ in untormented gloom" and "its lamentations/ are not the shrieks of pain, but hopeless sighs" (28-30). As if this description were not enough to satisfy his new acquaintance, Virgil continues to explain that he dwells "with souls of babes whom/ death bit off in their first innocence, before/ baptism washed them of their taint of earth" (31-3); moreover, he adds, he dwells also "with those who were not dressed/ in the Three Sacred Virtues but, unstained, recognized and practiced all the rest" (34-6). He is not bereft of God's light for any fault of his own, but for what he had "left undone," having "learned too late" and is, therefore, denied his "right to share/ [Sordello's] hope of seeing the Eternal sun" (25-7). In short, Sordello, the listener, might infer that Virgil was complaining of the divine order in his having described it so succinctly, but we know that Virgil knows that whatever is, is right. Still, that line, ". . . denies my right to share . . ." marks some dissatisfaction with the process, for we who know sin in what we have done and what we have failed to do can see that Virgil sinned neither in deed nor, indeed, in omission. Virgil has become like "love in pilgrim's rags" (IX, 9), only without the guile or the mask -- to be redeemed is more than he can ask.

We have, then, two major concerns that might be lodged by the dead in Limbo -- that of the justice inherent in the damning of a soul merely because of timing -- and wasn't it God who chose the time for Christ and knew too well when Virgil would be born, how he would live, and the circumstances under which he would die -- a life cut short 19 years before the earth could pace itself against the advent of a New Covenant. The second is that of the unbaptized children, who, for all accounts, continue to descend to Limbo -- even born under the sweetness and light of God's love, without baptism into the Christifidelis they will never see the face of God. What justice, what love, could have created this!

Of the former, Dylan Thomas would cry --

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Of the latter, Gustav Mahler would sigh --

Nun will die Sonn' so Hell aufgeh'n!
Nun seh' ich wohl, warum so dunkle Flammen
Wenn dein Mutterlein
Oft denk' ich, sie sind nur ausgegangen!
In diesem Wetter

Yet, Virgil knows that it is not for us to dwell upon this -- and if we turn to Pope, he answers that "the bliss of man (could pride that blessing find)/ Is not to act or think beyond mankind;/ No pow'rs of body or of soul to share,/ But what his nature and his state can bear" (189-92) and asks, "Who finds not Providence all good and wise,/ Alike in what it gives, and what denies?" (205-6). Like St. Polycarp, who at 86 allowed himself to be led to the stake, the fires of which could not touch him, we, too, accept our fate and understand that our creation at all is dependent upon God's beneficence -- how we cannot be unborn once we have aspired to the sweet life of this world even if we might be undone when we have expired to its joys -- and to its sorrows.

S.