Purgatorio Canto 1
And of that second kingdom will I sing
Wherein the human spirit doth purge itself,
And to ascend to heaven becometh worthy.
Having left the tormenting sights of the Inferno, Dante/pilgrim Dante now begins to sing of Purgatory. He compares his intelligence to a boat that is about cross waters that are kinder than hell. In this second kingdom, Purgatory, souls are cleansed of their sins. He invokes Calliope, the head Muse to help him so that his poem may rise again from the dead realm of Hell.
Feeling relieved to be out of hell, where "the miserable magpies felt /The blow so great, that they despaired of pardon", Dante is delighted to see the pure sky once again, ' the sweet colour of the oriental sapphire"! In his notes of the translation of 'Divine Comedy', Henry Wadsworth Longfellow explains, " The Mountain of Purgatory is a vast conical mountain, rising steep and high from the waters of the Southern Ocean, at a point antipodal to Mount Sion in Jerusalem."
At the South pole, he sees four old yet shiny stars glowing. These stars are ancient because they were " Ne’er seen before save by the primal people." Figuratively, they are the four Cardinal Virtues - Justice, Prudence, Fortitude and Temperance. Turning Northward, Dante sees a constellation that could help him calculate the time. But before he could set down to calculate, his attention is distracted by a sage-like old man with a white beard. His face seemed to shine by the light of the four stars. Quizzed by the querries of the sage, Dante turns to Virgil, his guide, who asks him to kneel before the old man and show respect.
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Confessions:
Psalm 91:10-11: there shall no evil befall me, neither shall any plague come nigh my dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over me, to keep me in all my ways.
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