Sue’s Reviews > The Divine Comedy > Status Update

Canto XXXIII

As one who sees in dreams and wakes to
find the emotional impression of his
vision still powerful while its parts fade
from his mind---

just such am I, having lost nearly all the vision itself, while in my heart I feel the
sweetness of it yet distill and fall.

So, in the sun, the footprints fade from snow. On the wild wind that bore the tumbling leaves the Sybil's oracles were scattered so.

Canto XX
From the first day I looked upon her face
in this life, to this present sight of her, my
song has followed her to sing her praise.

But here I must no longer even try to walk
behind her beauty. Every artist, his utmost
done, must put his brushes by.

Further along, at Canto 14, Mars, the lyricism returns: "and lo! all round me, equal in all its parts, a splendor dawned above the splendor there like a horizon when the new day starts." "As pole to pole, the arch of the Milky Way so glows, pricked out by the greater and lesser stars, that sages stare, not knowing what to say...."

If only Paradise were as lyrical as Purgatory. So far, very dogmatic and scholarly.

Dante has seen the procession in the Earthly Paradise and now has met Beatrice. His sins have been absolved. Paradise is near!

Purgatory is much more lyrical: "Indigo, phosphorescent wood self-lit,/ gold, fine silver, white-lead, cochineal,/ fresh emerald the moment it is split--/ all colors would seem lusterless as shade/ if placed beside the flowers and grassy banks/ that made a shining of that little glade./ Nor has nature only colored there,/ but of a thousand sweet scents made a single, earthless, nameless fragrance of the air." Ct VII

We are now in the lowest level of Hell and the punishments become even worse. Imagine---the journey upward is to begin soon!

Ciardi's translation is working well for me. The introduction and notes for each Canto are making this an effortless read...along with the group discussion of course.