PURGATORIO CANTO 2 Summary and Analysis

Synopsis and analysis of Canto II of Dante’s Purgatorio, the Canto of Music. Casella sings Amore.

English translations used for this video:

Thanks for your comments and questions. I will keep trying to upload at least one video every week.

[curioushmm]

thank-you tom....i love your remarks on prayer as work...and yes, being carried away by hymns is much

[mitrastoner]

This is my first time reading Dante’s Divine Comedy and I am enjoying it so much, spending sometimes two or three days studying each Canto. Your discussions have helped me so much. I stand in total awe at how inexhaustible this great work of art is and of its power in bringing me closer to God! I want to exclaim, “oh maraviglia!” myself! Thank you, Tom!

[katiapadilla]

Hola amigo!!! My translation of Canto 44 (The portable Dante by Mark Musa) is “with blessedness inscribed upon his face”. Also DANTE by Dorothy L Sayers : “freehold of bliss apparent in his face”. I enjoy your lectures so much!!! Thank you so much!! Grazie!!❤️🇮🇹

[scallydandlingaboutthebook]

Reading this canto before watching your video I had a feeling of lightness and optimism. Now you point out the refences to colours and a smile, as well as the songs, I can see how Dante created this effect.

[leahwolf]

Reading After Dante Poets in Purgatory, Canto 2 is translated beautifully by Bernard O'Donoghue. Music, colors and a way of relating that includes "gently he told me I must take it easy"- line 85. So special to find ourselves in this place.

[hesterdunlop]

Line 44 : Ellis . "Blazoned with his blessedness" .. Lombardo . " Make one blissful just to hear him described" Alter's Hebrew Bible he references Dante's supposed letter to Can Grande and his use of this Psalm 114 to illustrate the fourfold levels of interpretation of a sacred text ...he also mentioned that Joyce parodied this analysis in Ulysses...great writers all talking to each other across centuries !!

[HeyYallListenUp]

Another great discussion. Another commentor gave Longfellow's translation of line 44. His commentary of line 44 reads "Cervantes says in Don Quixote, Pt. I ch. 12, that the student Crisostomo “had a face like a benediction.” ", which I quite like.

[mariebelcredi]

I compared the colours of Canto 2, red and white, with the colours of Satan in Canto 34, in my translation “ruddy red” in Italian vermiglia and “yellowish white”. The emphasis in Canto 34 was that these colours sat in a background of blackness (bats wings and blackness) . Canto 2 has a background of brightness and light like the dawn. Same colours but different situations that give a different emotional response.
Also my translation of those 2 lines “Celestial, at the stern, the pilot stood - / beatitude, it seemed, inscribed on him” .
Thanks again Tony for the insight.

[faithbooks]

Line 44 in Esolen’s Translation (Modern Library) “beatitude seemed written on his face”. For the Hollanders translation: “his mere description would bring to bliss”.

[Ursulas_Odds_and_Sods]

Longfellow translates lines 22-24 as "Then on each side of it appeared to me/I knew not what of white, and underneath it/Little by little there came forth another." He translates 44 as "Beatitude seemed written in his face." I'm currently rereading the Comedy in Mark Musa's translation (after first reading it in Laurence Binyon's terza rima version in 2003-04), but I also bought the old Longfellow edition at a used bookstore because it has the famous Gustave Doré illustrations.

Rereading the Comedy with a more updated translation, and studying it while I'm reading, is almost like reading it for the first time all over again. There are so many things I misinterpreted, quickly forgot, or didn't understand because the first translation I read uses such old-fashioned language. I still fell in love with Dante and his poetry, but I missed a lot of important details and deeper meanings.

[GoreVidalComicbooks]

Good day, Tom. Music, being emotionally evocative, as you suggested, is the under current of this canto. Mentioning The New Life, which is the path Dante did not choose or was unattainable with Beatrice.
Purgatory, Canto II, is mesmerizing. It's been years since I read this canto, but looking at my Mandelbaum edition, there are drawings and underlining I did not remember doing (including an angel with Loki drawn wings). And beautiful and longing affirmations, such as, " we still were by the sea, like those who think about the journey they will undertake, who go in heart but in the body stay...." And one that takes me back to Dante's longing for Beatrice, " If there's no new law that denies you memory or practice of the songs of love that used to quiet all my longings, then may it please you with those songs to solace my souls somewhat; for - having journeyed here together with my body- it is weary." "Love that discourses to me in my mind..."
Regarding the Psalms, did you ever read the comic strip or novelizations of Modesty Blaise by Peter O'Donnell? Willie Garvin, Modesty's partner, memorized the psalms while imprisoned in his early life (his purgatory?) before he met Modesty, who saved him, spiritually and physically, (his Beatrice?).
As for Aeneas, I think he is still smarting from Dido's resentment in her eyes, admitting her eternal love for him. Something Dante, as a man, would be sensitive to when it came to Beatrice's carnal, if not spiritual, indifference.

[bighardbooks]

Love the Capricorn reference: line 56!. Love lines 113-117, as well 😜

[scallydandlingaboutthebook]

Kirkpatrick gives us
"And then around it, all appeared to me
a something of I-did-not-know pure white,
and, bit by bit, another under that.
As long as these first whitenesses seemed wings,
my teacher spoke no word" which is perhaps a bit clumsy and skips one white.

And "beatitude, it seemed, inscribed on him" which I quite like.

[jons]

Two more translations of line 44 from ones you haven't mentioned yet: one from Durling--"who seemed to have blessedness inscribed on him" and one from Hollander "his mere description would bring to bliss." I generally like Hollander, but that one seems a bit of a stretch. Thanks for all your help!

[TootightLautrec]

The music and light here are such a welcome delight. Is there any accounting of why Virgil can bolster and hoist Dante all through the Inferno, but suddenly other shades here are insubstantial bodies that Dante can't embrace? Musa's translation gives 22-26: "and there appeared, on both sides of this light, a whiteness indefinable, and then, another whiteness grew beneath the shape. My guide was silent all the while, but when the first two whitenesses turned into wings and he saw who the steerman was, ..." At 44 he says "blessedness inscribed upon his face." Musa is the only translation I'm reading, but I find it beautiful.

[attention]

I wouldn't think that anything in these Cantos are random. The translation of John Ciardi has verse 43-45, "Astern stood the great pilot of the Lord, /so fair his blessedness seemed written on him;/and more than a hundred souls were seated forward, " I would take this (at least with this translation) as the idiom, 'written on one's face' as showing something self evident. I think it is in Romans where it is stated, the law of God is written on the heart. I read it as the same kind of expression. The hugging of the air was a bit too relatable haha. I think Dante and Luther would have gotten along pretty well. haha. Great final comments in regard to music--nothing to add, just enjoyed it haha.

[kb]

I’m lagging behind…
Line 43-44 by Dorothy L Sayers: ‘ freehold of bliss apparent on his face, / The heavenly pilot on the poop stood tiptoe..’.

[rachelecontini]

My translation of line 44 says: 'his mere description would bring bliss'.

[jons]

Sorry--just went on to read the note in Hollander. Their translation was from Petrocchi, which apparently differs from the vast majority of manuscripts. If they were to follow the majority version, their translation would have been "whose look made him seem inscribed in blessedness."

[knittingbooksetc.]

White, whiteness, whitenesses.
That’s what’s in my book. The translator tried to vary a bit.