Prudence, Temperance, Fortitude, and Justice,--the virtues of
active life, sufficient to guide men in the right path, but not
to bring them to Paradise. By the first people arc probably meant
Adam and Eve, who from the terrestrial Paradise, on the summit of
the Mount of Purgatory, had seen these stars, visible only from
the Southern hemisphere. According to the geography of the time
Asia and Africa lay north of the equator, so that even to their
inhabitants these stars were invisible. Possibly the meaning is
that these stars, symbolizing the cardinal virtues, had been
visible only in the golden age.

This old man, as soon appears, is the younger Cato, and the
office here given to him of warden of the souls in the outer
region of Purgatory was suggested by the position assigned to him
by Virgil in the Aeneid, viii. 670. "Secretosque pios, his dantem
jura Catonem."

It has been objected to Virgil's thus putting him in Elysium,
that as a suicide his place was in the Mourning Fields. A similar
objection may be made to Dante's separating him from the other
suicides in the seventh circle of Hell (Canto XIII.). "But," says
Conington, "Virgil did not aim at perfect consistency. It was
enough for him that Cato was one who from his character in life
might be justly conceived of as lawgiver to the dead." So Dante,
using Cato as an allegoric figure, regards him as one who, before
the coming of Christ, practised the virtues which are required to
liberate the soul from sin, and who, as be says in the De
Monarchia (ii. 5), "that he might kindle the love of liberty in
the world, showed how precious it was, by preferring death with
liberty to life without it." This liberty is the type of that
spiritual freedom which Dante is seeking, and which, being the
perfect conformity of the human will to the will of God, is the
aim and fruition of nil redeemed souls.

In the region of Purgatory outside the gate, the souls have not
yet attained this freedom; they are on the way to it, and Cato is
allegorically fit to warn and spur them on.


"Who are ye that counter to the blind stream have fled from the
eternal prison?" said he, moving those venerable plumes. "Who has
guided you? Or who was a lamp to you, issuing forth from the deep
night that ever makes the infernal valley black? Are the laws of
the abyss thus broken? or is a new design changed in heaven that,
being damned, ye come unto my rocks?"

My Leader then took hold of me, and with words, and with hands,
and with signs, made my legs and my brow reverent. Then he
answered him, "Of myself I came not; a Lady descended from
Heaven, through whose prayers I succored this man with my
company. But since it is thy will that more of our condition be
unfolded to thee as it truly is, mine cannot be that to thee this
be denied. This man has not seen his last evening, but through
his folly was so near thereto that very little time there was to
turn. Even as I have said, I was sent to him to rescue him, and
there was no other way than this, along which I have set myself.
I have shown to him all the guilty people; and now I intend to
show him those spirits that purge themselves under thy ward. How
I have led him, it would be long to tell thee; from on high
descends power that aids me to conduct him to see thee and to
hear thee. Now may it please thee to approve his coming. He goes
seeking liberty, which is so dear, as he knows who for her
refuses life. Thou knowest it, for death for her sake was not
hitter to thee in Utica, where thou didst leave the garment that
on the great day shall he so bright. The eternal edicts are not
violated by us, for this one is alive, and Minos does not bind
me; but I am of the circle where are the chaste eyes of thy
Marcia, who in her look still prays thee, O holy breast, that for
thine own thou hold her. For her love, then, incline thyself to
us; let us go on through thy seven realms.[1] Thanks unto thee
will I carry back to her, if to be mentioned there below thou
deign."

[1] The seven circles of Purgatory.


"Marcia so pleased my eyes while I was on earth," said he then,
"that whatsoever grace she wished from me I did it; now, that on
the other side of the evil stream she dwells, she can no more
move me, by that law which was made when thence I issued
forth.[1] But if a Lady of heaven move and direct thee, as thou
sayest, there is no need of flattery; suffice it fully to thee
that for her sake thou askest me. Go then, and see thou gird this
one with a smooth rush, and that thou wash his face so that thou
remove all sully from it, for it were not befitting to go with
eye overcast by any cloud before the first minister that is of
those of Paradise. This little island, round about at its base,
down there yonder where the wave heats it, bears rushes upon its
soft ooze. No plant of other kind, that might put forth leaf or
grow hard, can there have life, because it yields not to the
shocks. Thereafter let not your return be this way; the Sun which
now is rising will show you to take the mountain by easier
ascent."

[1] The law that the redeemed cannot be touched by other than
heavenly affections.


So he disappeared, and I rose up, without speaking, and drew me
close to my Leader, and turned my eyes to him. He began, "Son,


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