- Feb 5, 2002
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We do the poor souls a great kindness by our prayers and pious acts to help speed them on their journey to Paradise.
“This mountain’s of such sort that climbing it is hardest at the start; but as we rise, the slope grows less unkind.”
The speaker is the Roman poet Virgil, Dante’s companion and guide, in scaling the lofty mountain of Purgatory in the second book of Dante’s tour-de-force account of the afterlife, The Divine Comedy. They’ve already paid a harrowing visit to the Inferno. Now it’s the turn of Purgatorio, where souls who need purifying are cleansed from of the stain of sin. After that — heaven.
Note the neat bit of catechesis (one of many) that Dante, via Virgil, slips in casually: The great mountain of Purgatory — which the souls must climb — gets easier the higher they go.
Continued below.
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“This mountain’s of such sort that climbing it is hardest at the start; but as we rise, the slope grows less unkind.”
The speaker is the Roman poet Virgil, Dante’s companion and guide, in scaling the lofty mountain of Purgatory in the second book of Dante’s tour-de-force account of the afterlife, The Divine Comedy. They’ve already paid a harrowing visit to the Inferno. Now it’s the turn of Purgatorio, where souls who need purifying are cleansed from of the stain of sin. After that — heaven.
Note the neat bit of catechesis (one of many) that Dante, via Virgil, slips in casually: The great mountain of Purgatory — which the souls must climb — gets easier the higher they go.
Continued below.
Read Dante’s ‘Purgatorio’ for All Souls’ Day
We do the poor souls a great kindness by our prayers and pious acts to help speed them on their journey to Paradise.
