Of the three Canticas of the Commedia the hardest for a non-Catholic to understand is the Purga-torio; because the entire conception of purgatory is foreign to his mind. Hence we find even devout men like H. F. Cary, who has general sympathy with Dante’s teaching, misunderstand him here. For example, upon the well-known lines (x. 106-in, which shall be quoted from his own translation):

‘Reader! I would not that amazed thou miss Of thy good purpose, hearing how just God Decrees our debts be cancel’d. Pander not The form of suffering. Think on what succeeds :

Think that, at worst, beyond the mighty doom It cannot pass.’

Cary’s comment is : ‘This is, in truth, an unanswerable objection to the doctrine of Purgatory. It is difficult to conceive how the best can meet death without horror, if they believe it must be followed by immediate and intense suffering.’ And Leigh Hunt, in his Italian Poets, refers to this comment with approval, after his own manner, that is to say, in less refined language.

‘The purpose of this article is to show how Dante himself, on the contrary, represents the attitude of the Holy Souls towards their own sufferings in Purgatory.

There are thirty-three cantos in the Purgatorio. The first nine of these are occupied with the Ante-purgatory, the middle cantos with Purgatory itself, and the last six with the ‘Earthly Paradise.’ It is very important to bear this fact in mind because the main interest of the drama of the ‘Second Kingdom’ lies in the Ante-purgatory, and the key to its interpretation may be found there.

Every reader of Dante will remember its lovely opening verse : ‘I will sing of that second Kingdom where the human spirit is purified and becomes worthy to ascend to heaven.’